August 1999: last filmed interview with Paul Magès, one month before his death

In this document

This film constitutes a filmed interview with Paul Magès, shot in August 1999 in a Citroën DS 19 parked in the Chaville woods — one month before his death. The available transcription comes from automatic subtitles (voice recognition): it contains numerous errors, particularly regarding proper names. Thus, the surname "Magès" is systematically transcribed as "Majeste" (00:10, 06:03); we silently correct this type of obvious alteration while noting it here once and for all. Other passages remain unclear and are marked as such below.

Magès opens the interview with a biographical reminder: "My name is [Magès] Paul. I was born in 1908 in the month of March [...] in the Alps. I am a Savoyard" (00:10-00:24). He mentions his father, a military master gunsmith, his early initiation into mechanics ("I had, let's say, mechanics in my skull", 01:13), then his time at the Jean-Baptiste-de-Versailles school, preparatory for the Arts et Métiers, where he felt "out of place" in mathematics and ended up "dropping out" (02:03-02:24) — which aligns with the biographical notice regarding his departure from high school at 17.

He recounts his hiring at Citroën in 1925 as an "industrial designer" (03:20-03:32), after an unanswered application at Bréguet, then his rapid promotion within the "method handling scheduling" department, following a reorganization of the engine factory that he designed himself at "17-18 years old" (06:15-06:19): "You follow the instructions of [Magès]" (06:03), his management reportedly told the supervisors — an episode that extends the autobiographical notes on his beginnings as a technical writer.

The heart of the interview focuses on the genesis of the DS. Magès situates his arrival at the design office "immediately after the war", at the request of Mr. Boulanger, to work with André Lefebvre — spelled "le Fèvre" in the transcription — then in political penance: "le Fèvre [...] had been put in the slammer" (09:21-09:31). He explicitly claims authorship of the hydraulic idea: "Who had the idea for the hydraulic system? — Oh well, that's me" (11:44-11:47), reporting Boulanger's remark pointing out a "future client" of the 2 CV in the street (11:57-12:19) — an episode to be compared with the notebook of the first 2 CV tests.

Magès details the technical principle at length: the compromise between coil springs, torsion bars (used on the "7" and "11", 15:07-15:15) and hydropneumatic sphere where "the steel works everywhere in tension" (16:01), with nitrogen as the "suspension element" (18:44) and liquid to avoid overheating during height corrections (20:59-21:19). He mentions a fight with the Service des Mines regarding the safety of the spheres (16:55-18:08), the invention of the automatic height corrector, revealed during tests in the snow in the Massif Central where a DS got stuck due to insufficient pressure (23:44-24:39), then the hydraulic button braking ("the DS was born without pedals", 25:29-25:32) — abandoned due to lack of acceptance by users accustomed to pedals — and the hydraulic gearbox designed with a collaborator he names, while hesitating, "Mignant" [uncertain: "Mignant mignant mignant"] (29:31-29:36), recalling the handwritten letter from Mr. Meignan.

He also returns to the power steering, demonstrated effortlessly in front of skeptics during timed tests at La Ferté-Vidame (30:42-33:11), to a hydrostatic transmission tested over 200,000 km (36:31-39:50), and to the financial difficulties linked to the Wankel engine ("it's the Wankel that screwed us up", 33:45-33:50) which led to the takeover by Michelin. Finally, he mentions an attempted agreement with Fiat regarding hydraulic windshield wipers (44:26-44:58).

To the question of his favorite DS, Magès evades and then concludes, modest: "I am proud to have done that [...] I suffered enough to get it accepted" (45:37-45:44), telling as a final anecdote a slight whistling of the gearbox that he "has not yet been able to remove" (46:36-47:20), in front of a design office director he names "Cadiou" (47:48).

Context

Retired from Citroën since September 1974 after a 49-year career (Photographs of Paul Magès' retirement (1974)), Magès had settled in Ramatuelle, where he was a municipal councilor and then 2nd deputy mayor (Ramatuelle Municipal Council (1983): Paul Magès, 2nd Deputy Mayor), before dying on 22 September 1999 (Speech by the Mayor of Ramatuelle in tribute to Paul Magès (1999)). This interview, filmed one month before his death in the Chaville woods, is presented as tired but willing; a second planned interview never took place.

Archivist's perspective

This automatic transcription, despite its voice recognition flaws regarding proper names, restores a first-rate testimony: Magès himself claims, without ambiguity, the authorship of the hydraulic idea and details the technical choices (sphere, nitrogen, liquid, height corrector, hydraulic braking and gearbox, power steering) with rare precision for a late oral document. It directly illuminates the technical pieces of the collection — 1944 plans, 2 CV tests, 15-Six test — and deserves to be compared with the First steps of the DS 19, 8mm film and The fabulous story of the DS. Uncertain passages (collaborators' names in particular) will have to be verified by cross-referencing with the written archives of the collection.