A very special Citroen

  Working on a Heller model, I looked in my display area for another version of the familiar Citroen 11 CV and re-discovered an interesting older Solido version.

   This 1/43 model is based on the pre-war Citroen 15 sedan, converted to run on an alternative fuel.  Gasoline was in extremely short supply in France during the years of occupation by the German Army.  In Paris before the war, an estimated 350,000 automobiles crowded the streets, but by 1944 that number was just under 4,500 and that included both trucks and cars.  These vehicles often used “gazogene,” a poor quality fuel carried in tanks on the roof, or coal gas/ methane extracted from the Paris sewer system.  (I thought of this just yesterday as I treated my lawn with MORGANITE Nitrogen Fertilizer, an ECO friendly product from Milwaukee’s water reclamation process.)

    Going further, Solido also authentically marked this model’s sides with the large “FFi” of the “Forces francaises de l’Intieur,” the French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II.  According to General Patton, the aid of the FFi to the US after the Normandy Invasion was instrumental to success.  The “V” enclosing the Cross of Lorraine refers to the July 1944 Battle of Vercors and the hundreds of FFi who died in the largest anti-partisan battle fought by the German army.

   Solido did a more elaborate commemoration model in the scale of 1/18.  I have admired pictures of it, one I reproduced just below.  I wonder how many of these Citroen models of whatever-scale are held with pride in French collections today.

  Enough of my meandering.  It's past time to get back to that model.

                                                                             David H