Citroen models
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André Citroën was born in 1878. A successful student, he attended the Polytechnical school in Paris and worked for some time with the car company "Mors". In 1905, at the age of 27, he founded his first company, "André Citroën & Cie", which was changed to "Société des Engrenages Citroën" (Citroën Cog Factory ) in 1913. Also in 1913, Citroën founded yet another company to take advantage of a patent he had regarding carburettors. This company was located on the Quai de Javel (today Quai André Citroën) in Paris. Early in his career, Citroen was impressed by the production methods of Henry Ford, who pioneered the use of the assembly line as early as 1908 for the Ford Model T in the U.S.A. Citroen understood that he had to analyse production methods and that he had to divide it into single logical steps in order to calculate the industrial production of an item mathematically.
With the outbreak of World War I, André
Citroën received a commission, beginning in 1915, to produce
7,500 75mm grenades - good work for a small company. Citroën was
able to convince the French Ministry of Defence that he could
deliver much bigger quantities with industrial production. The
company grew rapidly and in 1918 it occupied 80,000 square
metres at the Quai de Javel in Paris where, in 1914, there were
still garden allotments. 12,000 people were occupied producing
grenades. At the peak the output reached 20,000 pieces! The
company was very progressive in the social field: a cantine and
a kindergarden were present as was a dental clinic. During the
war, Citroen started thinking about the "days after". He talked
about building 1,000 automobiles a day at a price that would
enable everyone to own one of his cars.
