60+ years of floating style

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Enthusiasts of French cars have been celebrating an important anniversary this year – 2014 marks 60 years since Citroën's groundbreaking hydro-pneumatic suspension system first took to the roads. Everyone knows the remarkable DS was launched in 1955, but the floating, spring-less ride that was the hallmark of that car was actually first seen some 18 months previously, in a specially adapted Traction-Avant known as the 15-H (for Hydraulique). 

(Or if you really want to be precise, Citroën's  'floating' comfort came even a lot earlier. In the mid thirties when Anred Citroën imported a licence form Detroit to use rubber engine supports which was quite revolutionay back then. The radiator of the first series of cars was adorned with a swan and the text Moteur Flottante.) 

The interim hydraulic TA models sold moderately well, but the combination of the ageing Traction's coachwork and the complex new suspension had nothing like the impact of its revolutionary successor the following year. It's no surprise to learn that most people think the suspension's anniversary will occur next year... In actual fact, Citroën had been experimenting with spring-less suspension since the 1940s, and even built an early 2CV prototype with a simplified system during the war years – we'd love to have a go in that one. 

(text Scott Barrett)
 

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