French Sophistication: 1949 Citroën Traction Avant - Jay Leno’s Garage

it's fun to find cars like this because different thinking you know in america we sort of got used to engine the front transmission the middle rear end at the back every car was built basically the same you know whereas in europe the experiment engine the middle engine the front engine to the back front-wheel drive rear-wheel drive well another episode of jay leno's garage pandemic edition uh we're doing today my favorite kind of car original and unrestored the car is a 1949 sichuan traction and fall i hope i'm saying that correctly just a breakthrough car just an amazing automobile i've always liked this you know we always rave about the sm and the ds but this is really the car that paved the way for those legendary automobiles and still the most popular model ever produced uh came out about 1933 1934. andre citroen was uh an innovator brilliant guy but sadly just a bad gambler loved to gamble and lost the company and died soon afterwards and michelin took over and we'll get into that in a minute i've looked for exactly the right one for a long time because the first generation of these had a four-cylinder engine of about 46 horsepower and it could go 60 maybe even 65 pushing it but then a little underpowered then they came out under michelin's reign with a six-cylinder engine now a lot of the real sichuan aficionados did not care for the six it was not quite as uh nimble as the four but a 2.9 liter engine a lot more torque a lot more power this is the one that appealed to me because i can drive this in la traffic i can go 70 75 on the freeway no problem steering is a bit heavier than that first generation model uh but with a lot of cars like pennard and a few others that first generation was revolutionary and then things just happened this car i am the third owner of it and as i said original paint it's a bit scuffed up but it's been i first saw this car god 15 18 years ago parked in the back of a garage and i didn't have a whole lot of interest in it and then over the years i read about citroen and i read oh this is one of the rare six cylinder models well rarer they built 760 000 of these between 1934 and 1957. only a small amount of which were the six cylinder engine because it was more expensive it was more powerful i think in france at the time anything over 2.5 or 2.7 liter was taxed quite heavily so this would have been the boss's car you know would have been a bit more expensive the car is fascinating because of popularized independent suspension front wheel drive and of course monocoque uh body in design now we use the word popularize because it didn't invent those things but this was the first quote popular car or people's car to integrate all those features into one don't forget back in 1930 independent suspension monocoque front-wheel drive those were all pretty much breakthrough deals back in that day i mean it was it was unbelievable the fact that sichuan who was a huge admirer of henry ford's assembly line he incorporated a lot of henry ford's assembly line techniques in building this car so it's safe to say when it came out when you compare this to a 32 ford or 32 chevy or any of those cars from the period it's way more sophisticated you've got a lot more room inside because you've got the flat floor because there's no transmission tunnel you've got all kinds of room it's lighter because of the monocoque design monocoque means it's basically no chassis it's just a fascinating automobile very nice to drive also had rack and pinion steering it didn't invent that either but it was one of the first cars to use all of those features and when you realize a lot of those features didn't come in other automobiles until well ford really didn't have their first front-wheel drive car till the i guess the german thomas in about 1963. if i'm not i hope i'm correct there you guys will let me know you always let me know when i make a mistake and i appreciate that thank you very much thank you very much they did build these in other parts of the world they're being built them in england and right-hand drive and a few other countries as well let's start with the engine as with a lot of citroen products most of the innovation is not under the hood it's in and around it monocoque independent suspension front wheel drive it's basically a four-cylinder engine with two more cylinders on it let's take a look open these here as you can see fairly traditional design it is overhead valves not a flat head distributor that's new uh well you know this car was last driven in 1975 so it sat for quite a while when i got it i had an electric fuel pump on it which i replaced i went back to mechanical pump because i wanted to keep it all original a lot of people just went to electric fuel pumps i like this pump because before you start it right here you have a lever which is a pump probably can't hear that but see now i'm pumping fuel into the carburetor to prime it right here you've got an oil level gauge right there this is your uh reservoir for your master cylinder for your brakes uh six volt electrics i like to use these optima dry batteries you know the ones that don't use any water because you get no corrosion you can see pre corrosion from the previous 6 volt battery that was in there all i've done to this car is clean it up we've rebuilt the front suspension rebuilt the wheel cylinders rebuilt the master cylinder but that's about it everything else is as it was it's got 57 000 58 000 kilometers on it this is your oil goes right here uh notice the air cleaner goes all the way around the car kind of an interesting thing there um that's basically what's happening under the hood normally your engine would end around here with the four-cylinder so it's a little heavier steering than the four-cylinder model and back before they were you know super highways and things the fourth cylinder was more than adequate on a two-lane road or whatever but with this nice big 2.9 liter motor you can drive it almost every day as a modern car and this was sort of uh if you enjoy french gangster movies from the period sean paul bermundo and all those kind of guys charles asnavo or the singer you know they would always be standing next to him with these this was well think in france they sold 760 000 of them okay i mean that's a huge amount especially for a country the size of france you know and the united states it's a huge amount so it showed you how popular the car was and it was also the car of choice for gangsters when you watch any of those french gangster movies they always have the guys are smoking those french cigarettes and they're driving a very romantic kind of car really really cool um the six cylinder was developed i think about 1935. what happened was sichuan was a big gambler i think he was driven in a bankruptcy he died about 1933 i believe and michelin took over the company and develop this particular version of the car let's look at the other side too show you the intake side i like how these snap and lock come on let's go around the other side of the car here we are on the intake side you know this car is held up remarkably well all i've done is really polish these with this using just as much uh metal polish as i could come up with and they've come back quite nicely there's a small tiny amount of pitting but that just adds to patina and as i said this is the original paint let's open this site here's your air cleaner here your intake carburetors right here twin horns as you can see uh this is a pretty small car it just seems big when you're inside it because there's so much room but there's a lot of engine packed in there it's a three speed of which there was a lot of criticism back in the day they felt when they put the six cylinder in they should make it a four-speed because of how cramped everything was in here um they just couldn't get another gear in there apparently and the transmission is sort of mounted a bit higher because there was more room when the engine was only to here and they had to move that forward so there's a lot of re-engineering that went into it it made the car just a little bit heavier to steer i don't find it bad but uh i think the purists complain but i like it because it's got real power and when you put three or four people in it it's not a problem at all but everything is pretty much as it was i have not restored any of this i just wanted to keep it original with the exception of obviously the battery and a rebuilt original fuel pump that's pretty much it i think i mean just nicely manufactured the way the fan is driven there with the dynamo um here we go come on let's uh let's go around to the back okay here we are at the back of the vehicle uh this is the trunk this was an option to move the tire out of the back and put it back here you've got two locks here to open the trunk lock it pull both these handles up this comes back hits you right there and then you're screwed but as you can see actually it's surprisingly heavy normally the spare tire would go up in there that goes back a little bit not a huge drunk here is some uh french girl's dress left over from world war two i don't know what this is i don't know why this is back here this is expect to find nylons and chocolate and everything else back here as well but uh you got a little tool kit and a few other things uh i don't know what this little what this little thing here does never quite sure what that was oh it's got a light bulb in it of course all right uh yeah but it goes back there a little ways seeing the bumper falls down too which is unusual but it's quite a heavy trunk i don't think madame would find that to be helpful gas camp is right here of course i like the fishtail that's not an american thing but quite popular what's really interesting is how much room there is in this car i'm going to get in the back seat i'll show you what i'm talking about see just some remember this is not a big car but look how much room there is inside i mean i have got the rear seat back all the way and i still got plenty of leg room and i can i may have to lean forward to talk to the camera but look when i put my head all the way back you've got all kinds of room you got pockets here to keep stuff and i mean it's really a big car inside and it's really not much bigger than you know an american 32 ford but you've almost got limousine like leg room back here it's really really fantastic these suicide doors are great because they make egress as they say really easy typical french really comfortable seats you know i was reading a lot of reviews back in the day and the purists with the sixth letter they thought the seats were overstuffed you're sitting too high but you still got all kinds of room in here and this one has all the options at least i think it does you know you got the fishnets up here to carry stuff you've got your glove compartment and the gear shift uh just really easy the first gear second gear third gear and of course like american cars reverse straight up uh like it would be on a three on the tree notice it says here do not push clutch one style we put that on there because the french do everything differently i just love french engineering uh this one you do not engage the clutch when starting you start it without the clutch because it's i i think it's a technical reason but it's the engine spins easier when the clutch is engaged and it's in neutral but it's fine your handbrake is right here the windshield is the coolest thing this see this opens up all the way here it's amazing how effective that is and then you've got another one here that opens this vent under the hood and unscrews so you're getting you know before air conditioning they had all sorts of clever ways to bring air into the vehicle and uh it really worked because on a 90 degree day when it's hot you that breeze even though it's warm air it's still cooler than than than having nowhere at all coming through speedometers here you've got your gas gauge right there battery ammeter uh water temperature oil pressure and this is oh and the coolest part of the traffic heaters i'll show you those on the road those are really neat um i love the banjo steering wheel nicely done here i think this is bakelite i'm not sure you know henry ford loved bakelite and i think andre citron took that from him uh and you've got visors and you got your windshield wiper up here as i said they made this car from 1934 to 19 1957 and even when they were building the ds they built this alongside it and you know the pneumatic suspension and the ds you know how you can raise one wheel the later version the last versions of these they incorporated that suspension but these are so popular this is such a loved well this would be the 32 ford of france i mean it's it's that same sort of love they made hot rods out of them they raced them as i mentioned gangsters loved them police used i mean everybody used these they were just just fantastic cars because it was like jaguar in uh in england it was a lot of car for the money you know jaguar had a six so did aston martin but jaguars was half the everything was half the price you know and the same thing using henry ford's techno oh there's a horn there you go right there uh well we should probably do this while we're driving uh ready to take a ride come on let's do it okay we've got it up on the left i forgot to mention this as we'll put up show you what it's like underneath here as you can see there's no rust hardly at all i mean there's surface rust but that's it as you see we cleaned up the gas tank quite a bit repainted it it was actually all right new muffler shocks are okay those are the old hoodies see the shock and you've got your independent suspension and all okay notice how smooth it is under here with that nice flat floor obviously no drive shaft because as i said it's front wheel drive but everything is nicely original this car was well maintained well taken care of proving you know you can keep a car your whole life if you just take care of it you know all these need a routine maintenance change your living fifteen hundred to two thousand miles okay there's see we changed the oil last time we did it was eight three nineteen new gaskets and painted that we only replace parts as we need to as you see that whole new front end is all new all new suspension pieces all new lines hydraulic brakes of course here we go yeah let me turn it around and walk back the other way here's your trans see the transmission's right in the front which is obviously very unusual but not now for citroen because that's what that's the way they do things but pretty neat uh okay obviously all new brake lines as you can see safety obviously very important and these drives here the front wheel drive pieces those are all new new rubber bushings but other than that it's pretty much original i mean this is a 71 year old car and look how nice it is underneath no rust just as i said little surface rust but that's okay i think this is the original exhaust system the only thing we did as i mentioned before was the muffler so pretty good all right i think it's time to go for drive for real you know this windshield is really fantastic i mean it's a very hot day today in los angeles and it's actually quite cool plus you got the other vent which blows down on your feet very clever thinking i'm not sure if i mentioned this before this is the original interior and the original headliner headliner is a little stained but i guess some water came through on one of the rain gutters or something it probably was outside for a while but for the most part for an original 1949 car it's in very nice shape it's only got as i said 58 000 kilometers which is what 28 000 miles something like that so that's not that's nothing it just sat for a long time the original owner was french he bought it in france he brought it here drove it to 1975 parked it then the guy now has a garage he put it to the garage started for him for i don't know almost well to the last first time i saw it 15 years ago and then i finally got it about uh two or three years ago but i always wanted to wait for the sixth cylinder because it just has the torque and the power you know it's funny when i uh first got this and i drove the windshield open i said boy i got a blown exhaust casket i'm just hearing okay it's just you just hear more engine noises there was nothing wrong with the car at all it's just that with the windshield open it just opens up a lot more engine noise not not intrusive not bad just just more than normal but this is really an advanced automobile for the 30s even though this as i said a 1949 model uh don't forget you had uh well when this was introduced the fourth cylinder was one of the most popular cars in france uh then this came in under michelin and then uh world war ii started and of course production pretty much ceased so when they started up again after the war in 49 this is still basically a pre-war car you know factories have been bombed the machine had been stolen everything's been devastated you know so amazing effort and the thing that surprises me is how cool it runs i mean this thing i thought for sure it'd be overheating and boiling over but no it it goes right to you know center of the gauge stays at about what is that uh well 65 70 degrees uh centigrade which is exactly where it should be it's got pretty good pickup too it probably could use one more speed i i was disappointed to learn that the six cylinders i thought for sure they would have a four speed but no it just and then the more i read up on it uh there's a number of great books on these cars and they just there was no room in the gearbox that being said it's reasonably long-legged so you know 70 miles an hour on the freeway not a problem and french cars have always been about comfort you know they're not so obsessed with nurburgring and all of that as some of the other manufacturers not to say that they're not powerful and that they can't be quick but it's not the main thing of the company you know and i love this gear shift i mean it's really fun and when you take people for a ride you haven't been in one what are you doing what is that that's the gear trip why is this sticking out of the dashboard you know they're so used to seeing it down here with a big hump in the floor as you see with the flat floor you know when the toronado came out in 1966 americans were look at that flat floor front-wheel distance unbelievable i mean the french had it in the 30s also i don't know if you notice how low this car is especially compared to other american cars from the period and you know once you're sitting in it like this you look down that long hood you see those two headlights and you feel like you're in some big duesenberg or something with the long hood but that's actually quite a small car the french do a nice job with manual transmissions for some reason you know my citroen sm oh man that's the best shifting car at least stock shifting car i've ever had it's really cool how are you buddy you see people like this stuff and the traffic haters are really cool here let me show you it seems so involved to build the traffic gator you got to cut a hole in the center post you got to wire it you've got a hinge you got to have a thing that opens i mean just supposed to just a blinking light like we had in america but then again tail lights were not uh standard in america in the 30s i mean signal lights you know turn signals uh the french had it and in the 30s but this six cylinder makes all the difference i can't emphasize that enough i don't know why some people were against it when it came out because it's it's silky smooth all kinds of torque i mean i driven the four cylinder i just thought uh it's a little too buzzy for being in la you know and going up hills with people in it i'm gonna be holding everybody up whereas with this six man just pulls very very nicely you get a lot of thumbs up every now and then i get stopped by low rider guys that car's so low i like that you know did you lower it now that's the way they came they're gonna explain what it is and they seem fascinated by it it's fun to find cars like this because different thinking you know in america we sort of got used to engine the front transmission the middle rear end at the back every car was built basically the same you know whereas in europe the experiment engine the middle engine the front engine in the back front-wheel drive rear-wheel drive plus in america especially in the 30s 40s 50s gas was cheap especially on the world market compared to the world market rather so consequently there was no need to make particularly economical cars because gas was cheap you know whereas the the french and the europeans they learned to be a bit more thrifty and economical because gas was so hugely expensive and you got these wind wings here which are kind of cool you can direct the air anywhere you want see when you get in the situation step on the gas and you pull away here's the rolls-royce term the power is adequate the four-cylinder engine was i think 45 horsepower this was somewhere between 76 and 80 horsepower i think that's fair to say and considering how light the car is it moves along quite nicely but as i said it's all how the vehicle makes you feel and this is just so nice to drive it just does everything you ask it to do you know there's no fidgeting with the gear shift and forcing it into gear everything moves click click you know almost like a swiss watch like like turning the thumbnail dial you know it just goes click click nicely in the gear now you think the wind would be blowing in my face but it's not it really comes in and goes over the top of the car so i can feel a little bit of my hair but it's not right in my i'm not squinting looking through the windshield with this thing when i take people for a ride they go you're going 100 i go that's right i'm going 100. kilometers 62 miles i took this car for a long drive last sunday and i really enjoyed it you know i got plenty of cars that go fast but this is just comfortable you know it's just a nice driving car and the sheer mechanicalness of it is what i love you know there goes the guy taking my picture hey dawn um you know the steering this predates power steering power windows so everything has a nice feel to it you turn the crank everything is nicely weighted you know when you put the window up turn that handle i mean i think now you could still take a long journey in this car and be more than comfortable a pretty much timeless design uh i know the designer's name i can't pronounce it last name molina i'm not even gonna attempt i know i'm gonna butcher it like i said if you're like me you read all these car books and you read these european italian french names or german names and you think you got it down and then you say it people go what i have no idea what you're talking about french cars citroen especially are built in paris you know all the other kind of cars seem to be built in modena detroit uh stuttgart you know industrial areas not romantic cities like paris you know and i think that maybe has to do a little bit with the style of the automobile and the way it's built in the thinking you know there's a lot of light and intellectualism involved in these i i know i'm probably blabbering here but i i don't know i just feel that there's something about the the atmosphere of where a car is designed that's why a lot of designers come to california to get the youth vote and the sun and the appeal and you know to make the car seem romantic just like a cadillac can only be american actually cadillac is a french name i believe but there goes that theory anyway i just enjoy driving this car if you never if you ever get the chance to drive a french car you should try it because it's just so different and i don't know why again the fact that it's right in the middle is england and germany and spain and portugal and all around it and they all tend to think fairly traditionally in the design of automobiles the french are the only ones that think completely different i'm not sure why that is but i'm glad it is and i say so viva la france and anyway i hope you enjoyed this little uh trip uh give you a chance to see what sometimes it's not all about high speed and doing burnouts sometimes it's just about being comfortable and enjoying a car and that's what i'm doing right now so i'm gonna go enjoy this car some more and we'll see you guys next week thanks again thanks for watching [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 436,821

Rating: 4.9578176 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Citroen, Traction Avant, French cars, front wheel drive, monocoque, independent suspension, rare cars, classic cars, Michelin, André-Gustave, car show, Jay Leno, car nerd, motonerd, car porn, 1949 Citroën Traction Avant, citroen traction avant, 1949 car, cars, jay leno, jay lenos garage, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, car collection

Id: jld1E50Xw8k

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020