Word: citro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...warmed up on the tarmac of Casablanca's airport. A fleet of black Citroëns prowled determinedly through the French quarters of Casablanca, Rabat, Meknés and Fez picking up passengers for the flight. All through the small hours one morning last week agents of Morocco's new secret police force knocked at door after door and curtly informed sleepy French colons to get dressed; they were to be expelled from Morocco immediately...
...Invent?" Though Le Temps' backing comes from executives in top business firms, e.g., Michelin tires, Citroën, Esso Standard Oil, the backers (as Esso Standard Oil took pains to point out in its own case) went in as individuals, not corporations. Nevertheless, the bugaboo of business control of newspapers is a real one in France. When some 60 dailies cluttered Paris kiosks in the 1920s, bankers and munitions makers kept newspapers like mistresses. By World War II, big business had a firm grip on the major Paris dailies. Afterward, millions of angry Frenchmen blamed business for the papers...
...Citroën threw money around on lavish living, promoted his cars in a manner unheard of in France. He organized a Citroën expedition to Central Asia, another across the Sahara Desert, and put his name in lights on the Eiffel Tower-280,000 bulbs winking in letters 100 ft. high...
When creditors came calling on Citroën to protest these extravagances, he plied them with wine, cigars and promises of better times. By 1934, better times seemed on their way, as he tooled up for the famous front-wheel-drive Citroën. But it was too late: Citroën owed too much. One day in 1934, a creditor came calling who could not be turned away with fine language and fine wines. Pierre Michelin, tycoon of Michelin Tire Co., France's largest tiremakers, who had bought up an estimated 63% of Citro...
...Conservatives. The new owners cut down on debts, advertising (Citroën does not advertise in France to this day) and car colors, but with Michelin's ultra-conservative management and Citroën's soundly conceived car, the firm prospered. By World War II, it was selling 60,000 autos a year. Nazi bombings, followed by Nazi expropriations of machine tools, stopped production, but with war's end' Citroën came back, turned out 9,324 cars' in chaotic 1945. Last week, with a comfortable billion francs in cash reserves, Citro...