Draft letter from Paul Magès to Mr. Grosseau: tensions in the design office and connecting frame of the L car

In this document

A draft letter dated 3 October 1969

This handwritten sheet, numbered "10.69" in red ink, is a draft letter addressed by Paul Magès to a certain Mr. Grosseau p. 123. In it, Magès mentions "clumsy remarks by Mr. Barre" made "at the Versailles congress hall in 1968", which had "at the design office, a deplorable repercussion harmful to the work" p. 123.

He mentions an article in France Soir which allegedly revived "indignation" regarding the "reasons invoked by Mr. Barre on the choice of the Maserati engine [uncertain]" p. 123. Magès defends his teams: "It is unfair to our engine designers" p. 123.

He concludes with a personal admission: "Personally, I am out of arguments to defend, at the cost of our collaborators, the point of view of the management" p. 123. A handwritten note in the margin, difficult to read, adds a reflection on the workload of the design office and the "psychological factor" that a "business leader" should not neglect p. 123. The letter is initialled and dated "3.10.69" p. 123.

A technical reminder on the connecting frame of the "L" car

The following page changes subject and register: it reports that the decision to build the "L" car with a connecting frame between the axles was taken "taking into account the results [uncertain: "spectacular"] obtained with a 3CV whose body had been detached from the chassis and mounted on vertical straps" p. 124. This experimental prototype is called "Calèche", and tests are dated 27 April 1967 p. 124.

Context

The "L" car refers, in the internal Citroën language of the time, to a project that would lead in particular to the GS (launched in 1970). Mr. Barre, cited in the letter, could correspond to a senior executive of the brand, but his precise identity is not given by the document. The social and industrial context of Citroën at the end of the 1960s is marked by tensions linked to the strategic choices of the management (notably around the Michelin group, then owner of the brand) — these elements are part of general historical knowledge and are not mentioned in the archive itself.

Archivist's view

This diptych of pages is precious because it shows two facets of Paul Magès rarely brought together: the technical engineer, attached to experimental detail (the "Calèche" prototype and its vertical straps), and the man confronted with the human tensions of his design office, caught between the management and his collaborators p. 123.

It seems that this draft was not kept in its final sent version — the presence of numerous crossings-out and an unfinished marginal annotation p. 123 suggests a text still in the process of being drafted, revealing the care that Magès took to weigh his words before writing to the management.

The mention of the connecting frame and the "Calèche" prototype p. 124 usefully complements other documents in the same file devoted to suspension and road-holding tests, such as the road test report of 2 to 5 April 1962 or the note on the AP suspension of 22 February 1963, which testify to the same progressive experimental approach in Magès.