BOOK REVIEW BY PETER MOORE
Following World War 1, there was a huge recovery of the many thousands of vehicles (and other bits) utilised by the UK Forces during that conflict. These vehicles went into various open storage areas including old racecourses and rotted for a few years before the authorities concluded on what could be achieved with the stock. From this exercise evolved the Slough Trading Estate involved initially in recycling the best of what was recovered. Also, utilising the skills and workforce at the time, a relationship was developed with a new boy on the block in France, one Andre Citroen, to build car his cars in England.
Why bother!?
Following WW1, the feeling in Australia and many other Commonwealth countries was for protection of local industry. incentives were instituted to encourage a local labour content. To this end, where the fullest engineering scope was not available yet, the incentives were to import cars and trucks into Australia from other Commonwealth countries and particularly in “knocked-down” form so that the assembly labour and wherever possible other parts like bodies, panels etc could be made by Australian manufacturers.
So, from England we would take all manner of English cars etc, wherever possible with Australian bodies fitted later at the minimum tariffs. France, USA etc could not offer us competitive imports as their product was taxed heavily, but by sourcing supply from England and Canada for example, we developed a flourishing motor car industry. US made cars would be very expensive if fully imported by sourcing from US factories but many US manufacturers also had Canadian factories and as this was a Commonwealth country, we gained products that could be adapted and bodied for our local market at minimal penalty
So, our Citroens came from Slough in England. Well, most of them anyway.
A book to shortly enter our Dipstick Library, titled “Eighty Years Of Citroen in the United Kingdom” by John Reynolds is a comprehensive history of the Slough operation from 1926 to 1966. It offers a thoroughly researched and documented history of this operation with comprehensive photo record of the factory facilities, the cars built and exported all around the World to other Commonwealth countries and finally its demise with changing political environments and the advent of the European Common Market.
A particular attraction to Citroën cars is not necessary to enjoy this read. From the little and very basic 5CV through the larger mid-war saloons and post WW2, into the Traction Avant, 2CVs, the beautiful little fibreglass bodied ”Bijou” 2CV variant and the Goddesses and later, you find the time line of a company striving to produce a range of cars we now see sparingly in our market but cars that popularised developments such as front wheel drive, air bag suspensions and more that we accept as vital in our motoring demands today.
Find it and enjoy.
A Slough-built Citroen, now residing in Clare, South Australia and renamed Andre😊
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