Test no. 218.777: endurance of the rubber suspension on car ELV 230 (14 Dec. 1948)

In this document

This is a test report from the André Citroën Laboratory (53, rue Balard, Paris), dated 14 December 1948 and registered (entry stamp) on 16 December 1948, addressed to the Design department for the attention of Mr. Magès.

The document bears the reference Test no. 218.777, responding to a "Design request no. 42.531 B", and concerns the "Rubber suspension on PV" p. 62.

Endurance results

The rubber suspension fitted to the test car ELV 230 had at that time "approximately 120,000 km" of endurance at the Laboratory p. 62. Three deteriorations of parts called "Bibax" are reported:

A final note ("NOTA") specifies that parts will be sent to Mr. Magès for examination p. 62. The document contains three handwritten signatures at the bottom of the page, the legibility of which is uncertain and has therefore not been included.

Context

At the end of the 1940s, Citroën laboratories were pursuing, in parallel with the development of the future hydropneumatic suspension, the study of intermediate solutions based on rubber, used in particular on test vehicles. The acronym "PV" generally refers, in the Citroën vocabulary of the time, to a test vehicle (prototype), while "ELV" designated a series of cars dedicated to internal test campaigns. This information is part of general knowledge of Citroën history and is not stated as such in the document.

At this date, Paul Magès, who joined Citroën in August 1925, was working in the design office on the hydropneumatic suspension — the first plans for which date from 17 February 1944 (Hydropneumatic suspension plans) and the first tests of which on the 2 CV took place in May-July 1946 (Notebook of the first 2 CV tests) — which explains why he was the recipient of this report on a competing rubber-based solution.

Archivist's perspective

This report illustrates the meticulous endurance monitoring work carried out at the André Citroën Laboratory, with a precise record, to the nearest kilometre, of component failures p. 62. It bears witness to the development phase of elastic suspensions before the culmination of the hydropneumatic solution championed by Paul Magès.

The fact that the faulty parts were explicitly intended to be sent to Mr. Magès for examination p. 62 confirms the central role he occupied from this period in the technical analysis of suspension failures, in connection with his research on the hydropneumatic suspension, documented in other items in the same file such as the Folder "Theoretical study – hydropneumatic suspension 1943/44" or the Summary of folder 41-59.

This document, brief but precise, constitutes a concrete and dated trace of the comparative tests between different suspension technologies conducted at Citroën during this pivotal era.