This is the first car I've always thought of when thinking about classic cars in general. It's kinda pre-war, built till the 50's and you still saw a few of them daily used in my younger years. They were also often used in movies set in World War 2, probably due to it's easy availability.
The Traction Avant, French for "front wheel drive", was designed in 1933. While not the first production front wheel drive car (Alvis built the 1928 FWD in the UK), it was the world's first front-wheel drive steel monocoque unibody production car. Along with DKW's two-stroke 1930s models, the TA successfully pioneered front-wheel drive on the European mass car market. And due to that unibody-design it was lighter than it's competitors which resulted in a remarkable top speed of 60+ mph (again: it was the 30s!) and a fuel-consumption of only 24mpg.
The very low-slung design was quite modern in the 30s but you can imagine what shock it was when Citroën launched it's insane DS in 1955.
The last model, the '15/6 H' (from which the first states it's tax-class I presume and the latter the amount of cylinders) even had the hydraulic suspension (on the rear-axle) that Citroën is known for nowadays. Prototypes of a coupé and a V8 were also built but never reached production. Finally there was a 'Familiale' available which could seat 9! Funny detail as well is that the development-costs of the TA led to Citroëns Bankruptcy so Michelin could buy it in 1934.
The model itself is a '15/6' from Solido. It's quite good, I really start to like these Solido 1/43s: They're quite accurate, nice details (chrome/glass headlights, actual wheels) and the rigidity is good. It has survived the '2-year-old'-test without any problems:
It's blister-package has some 'smoked' look, not sure if this is off-factory to emphasise it's age or that it's been in storage or something with it's previous owner.
The undercarriage is quite simple but with 1/43 I couldn't care less. So... That's it for this week's French Friday!
