Handwritten cover page: "M. Bongrand — Air suspension, 59-61"

In this document

The page contains only a brief handwritten inscription: "M Bongrand Susp. a Air." followed by the mention "59-61". It is clearly a cover page, intended to identify the contents of a larger file dedicated to a certain Mr. Bongrand and air suspension, for the period 1959-1961.

The background of the page reveals, as a watermark, the remains of an old printed letterhead — fragments evoking the words "DISTILLERIE" and "CHARMILLES" — a sign that the sheet was reused from existing commercial paper. This watermark provides no usable information on the content of the file itself.

No other textual, technical, or precisely dated elements appear on this page.

Context

At Citroën, the late 1950s corresponded to a period of intense research into suspension systems, in the wake of the development of the hydropneumatic suspension of the DS, launched in 1955. Competing or complementary solutions, such as air suspension, may have been studied in parallel by various engineers or external correspondents to the brand — which the name Bongrand associated with this technique seems to indicate.

The reused paper, bearing the trace of old correspondence linked to a distillery (probably a client company or supplier of Citroën in Vitré, the "Cidrerie-Distillerie des Charmilles"), illustrates the stationery recovery practices common in design offices of the time.

Archivist's perspective

This simple cover page constitutes the entry point for a file that the related archives allow to be reconstructed more precisely. It notably contains correspondence from A. Bougeard dated 5 November 1959, as well as several handwritten notes by Paul Magès from June and July 1959 concerning suspension calculations.

The file seems to close with a note from Magès dated 19 June 1961, summarizing the "Bongrand affair" and comparing the respective merits of air suspension and hydropneumatic suspension — which confirms that the "59-61" period inscribed on this cover page corresponds well to the chronological scope of the file it introduces.

A meeting report from 17 February 1960 also mentions a suspension patent in the name of Bougeard, suggesting that this affair had a real industrial scope, probably linked to intellectual property issues regarding Citroën's internal research.