From peasants to presidents

André Citroën couldn’t possibly have known that nearly 90 years after his death, a group of motoring journalists would be found roaming around a collection of cars bearing his name in a mad, giggling frenzy, like school children given the run of a sweet shop.

I’ve never seen so many wobbly knees in one place. Giddy isn’t the half of it. All those swivelling headlights, mushroom-button brake pedals and rear axles rising high on hydropneumatic suspension caused endless bother. When a modern day recreation of the 1922 Golden Scarab on half-tracks slowly putt-putted its way around the warehouse, I thought our group was going to be asked to leave on grounds of indecency. André would not have believed his eyes.

And I wonder: is there another mass market car manufacturer that would provoke such a fetishistic response from a group of enthusiasts? It was like we were in the Ferrari museum drooling over 250 GTOs and Fangio’s championship-winning Grand Prix car; but rather than rare exotica, these were family saloons and city runarounds.