[2] A range of mostly four-door saloons and executive cars, as well as longer wheelbased "Commerciale",[3] and three row seating "Familiale" models, were produced with four- and six-cylinder engines, by French carmaker Citroën from 1934 to 1957.

The Traction Avant, French for front-wheel drive, was designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni in late 1933 / early 1934.

Front-wheel drive had appeared in the previous decade through luxury vehicle manufacturers Alvis, which built the 1928 Racing FWD in the UK, and Cord, which produced the L29 from 1929 to 1932 in the United States.

A type of crash test was conceived, taking the form of driving the car off a cliff, to illustrate its great inherent resilience.

[8] The novel design made the car very low-slung relative to its contemporaries – the Traction Avant went from appearing rakish in 1934 to familiar and somewhat old fashioned by 1955.

The front wheels were independently sprung, using a torsion bar and wishbone suspension arrangement,[9] where most contemporaries used live axle and cart-type leaf spring designs.

[10] With characteristic showmanship, André Citroën celebrated by inviting 6,000 guests – mostly dealers and agents and others who would be involved in selling and promoting the car – to a spectacular banquet in the new and, at this stage, still empty factory, on 8 October 1933.

[10] Citroën's gesture quickly came to be seen as hubristic, as the ensuing months became a race against time to finish the development of the car and tool up for its production before his investors lost patience.

[10] In the end, the first car was presented at Citroën's huge Paris showroom on 18 April 1934, by which time principal dealers had already had their own private unveiling on 23 March.

[1] The war years were characterised by a desperate shortage of raw materials for civilian industry and of petrol,[1] but these factors were not apparent instantly.

The Paris Motor Show scheduled for October 1939 was cancelled at short notice; Citroën's own planned announcements had involved the forthcoming 2CV model rather than any significant changes to the Traction.

[1] For the Traction Avant, the last "normal" year in terms of production levels was 1939, and 8,120 of the 7C model, with 2,910 mm (115 in) wheelbase and 1,628 cc (99.3 cu in), were produced.

[1] In 1945, the car was the only model available from Citroën, and as another sign of the times, customers not able to supply their own tires were charged an additional 9,455 francs for a set of five.

[1] The 11 B-normal model, differentiated from the 11 B-light by its 3,090 mm (122 in) wheelbase, underwent a similar drop in sales volumes between 1939 and 1941, with just 341 cars produced during the first seven months of 1941.

Initially the French Army lacked enthusiasm for the Traction Avant, believing it offered insufficient ground clearance for their needs.

With losses of cars at the frontier mounting, Citroën supplied a further 570 to the Army between February and May 1940, and subsequent deliveries probably took place before military defeat intervened.

Traction Avants were also favoured by the Resistance, and as occupation gave way to Liberation they turned up all over France with FFI inscribed proudly on their doors.

[15] Despite Citroën's attention to the perceived shortcomings of the earlier Tractions, significant numbers of customers still opted for the manufacturer's old rear-wheel drive models which, in 1936, still accounted for more than 10 per cent of the factory's output.

The six-cylinder, 2876 cc model was used as a "Test Bed" for the introduction of the hydropneumatic suspension that underpinned the revolutionary Citroën DS19 that was launched at the Paris Motor Show in 1955.

A dashboard-mounted override control was fitted to allow the rear suspension to be locked in normal ride height when parked, so the car did not drop in response to loading and unloading.

The interior had a walnut dash board with Jaeger instruments,[23] Connolly Leather seats and door panels and a wool headlining.

The Traction Avant used a longitudinal, front-wheel drive layout, with the engine set well within the wheelbase, resulting in a very favourable weight distribution, aiding the car's advanced handling characteristics.

The result of this layout, along with pendant pedals, umbrella-type handbrake control and front bench seats, was a very spacious interior, with a flat and unobstructed floor.

In the case of Jack Brabham, who personally visited the ERSA foundry in Paris to discuss a possibility to strengthen the case,[25] the transaxle became known as "ERSA Knight" with an additional spur-gear set mounted in the bellhousing spacer (engine to transaxle adapter) suggested by Ron Tauranac, named for Jack Knight who designed the modification and made the straight-cut gears.

The development costs of the Traction Avant, combined with the redevelopment of its factory, were very high and Citroën declared bankruptcy in late 1934.

In 1954, Citroën's experiments with hydropneumatic technology produced its first result, the "15/6 H" – a variant of the 6-cylinder model 15/6 with a self-leveling, height-adjustable rear suspension, a field trial for the DS released the following year.

Directly after the introduction of the Citroën ID, a simplified and more competitively priced version of the expensive DS model, production of the Traction Avant ended in July 1957.

According to Internet Movie Cars Database, the Traction Avant has made over 1,300 film/TV appearances, including prominent roles in The Sound of Music (1965) and the French films Army of Shadows (1969) and Diva (1981).

In 2006, the oldest surviving 7A has production number ("coque nr") AZ 00–18, and is displayed in partly dismantled shape (engine and front wheels detached) in the Citroën Museum in Paris.

Traction Avants are fairly robust vehicles even by modern standards, but they may be prone to leaking water inside the cabin.