Word: citroens
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Proliferation. Though Europe's 50-odd automakers are not quite ready to embrace Detroit's concept of planned obsolescence, the shapes and sizes of European cars are proliferating. France's Panhard turns out nine mod els, Citroen eight; in West Germany, Ford offers 27 models, G.M.-owned...
...More Siestas. In Saigon, Lieut General Duong Van ("Big") Minh, the head of the ruling military junta, rode about almost unnoticed in a black Citroen (in contrast to Diem's vast motorcades), visiting a few government offices and military units. He also opened promising negotiations with Vietnamese sects that had withdrawn sup port from Diem but were not ready to rally to the new regime. But while still clearly favored by the population, the new regime seemed oddly reluctant to assume political leadership. One of its few decisions: to abolish the siesta that has traditionally closed government offices...
...company as stubborn, as in different to popular tastes, as arbitrary and as nonconformist as France's automaking Citroen could survive in the 20th century is perhaps the single most amazing aspect of the extraordinary firm. In a style-conscious country, Citroen produces some of the ugliest duck lings in the auto world -and sometimes leaves them unchanged for 20 years or more. It practically never advertises in France, maintains supersecrecy about itself, and arrogantly sniffs at its com petitors' concern for style and their methods of hurried obsolescence. Yet the appetite for Citroen cars...
Many of the company's designers are aeronautical engineers who constantly test designs in wind tunnels and work in a cloak-and-dagger atmosphere. Two high walls block out Citroen's proving grounds in Normandy, and the no man's land between them is patrolled by menacing dogs and guards. The only nonresearch employee who may enter without a special pass signed by three persons is a conservative economist, Pierre Bercot, 59, who is Citroen's president...
Disposable Parts. Research was also the passion of the company's founder, Andre Citroen, a high-living production and promotion wizard who revamped France's sluggish artillery-shell plants in World War I, later introduced Henry Ford's mass-production techniques to begin his auto firm. He advertised with songs and skywriting, once had the Eiffel Tower strung with 250,000 lights that spelled CITROEN. But he spent even more lavishly on development and the Deauville gaming tables, lost control of the company to the more staid and highly secretive Tiremaker Michelin in 1934, and died heartbroken...