Pedal car project — sketches and dimensions (1940)

In this document

Silhouette and style sketches (pages 1 and 4)

Page 1 presents a pencil sketch of a car seen in profile, with a "teardrop-shaped" silhouette, with two wheels and a human figure sketched inside, at the level of the driving position. The construction lines and the central scribble remain largely illegible.

Page 4, better preserved, shows an enveloping and rounded bodywork, seen in profile: very rounded front hood, inclined windshield, domed roof extending towards the rear. The drawing is described as "a preliminary study of style or volume, without mechanical details or apparent dimensions".

Mechanism and plan (page 2)

Page 2 displays three superimposed registers: a profile view of the vehicle with a pedal mechanism (sprockets/pulleys connected by belts or chains) and a triangular linkage; a top view of the shell, almond-shaped, with two symmetrical oval openings (probable locations of the occupants); finally, a partial diagram evoking a steering or suspension device, the identification of which remains uncertain according to the transcription itself.

Dimensions and measurements (page 3)

Page 3 gathers a seated human silhouette, in profile, surrounded by numerous dimensions in millimetres: 1050, 12, 15, 320, 520, 730, 850, 300, 200, 350 450 p. 3. Two small auxiliary geometric sketches specify dimensions of "300" and "200" between two semi-circles marked "D", as well as a circle crossed by a vertical arrow dimensioned "350 450". An uncertain mention of "width" also appears p. 3.

Context

These sheets date from 1940, a period when Paul Magès, who joined Citroën in August 1925 and was already a technical writer and then deputy head of the Super-Control (draft letter from Paul Magès to Mr. Sarre), was working on the braking limiter for the TUB van before joining the design office, a few years before his first plans for hydropneumatic suspension on 17 February 1944 (hydropneumatic suspension plans with differential interaction). Pedal cars, or faired velomobiles, enjoyed a certain interest in the interwar period, at the crossroads of cycling, aerodynamics, and light mechanics — a fertile ground for inventive amateurs as well as future automotive engineers. However, nothing in the document allows this project to be linked to a specific company or order: this connection is part of the general context of the time, not the archive itself.

Archivist's perspective

This small set of four sheets seems to document the successive stages of the same project: silhouette research (p. 1, p. 4), study of the mechanism and interior layout p. 2, then dimensional development related to human morphology p. 3. This progression — from style to dimensioning — evokes a working method probably personal to Magès, where the sketch precedes the measurement.

The interest of this archive lies less in its technical content, which remains largely uncertain in the transcriptions, than in what it reveals of an amateur engineer's drawing practice, contemporary with Magès's beginnings at the Citroën design office and prior to the great hydropneumatic achievements that would make him famous. As such, it constitutes a rare and modest milestone in the origins of his creative journey.