About Guido and the Citroen Collection

Some people have a passion for the DS, or the 2CV, and there are clubs around the world for just these models. I have a passion for drawing. So my contribution is the drawing of as many Citroën cars as my time on this Earth will allow. This will also include the collecting and drawing of blueprints of every model. No easy task.

My first wife had a rare desease called Guillain-Barré syndrome, as well as epilepsy and in the end, she also had a brain tumor (Multiforma Carcinoma). During her long 8 year illness, I was her full time carer. During this time, my Citroen Project became my “sane” project. In the early days of the 80’s and 90’s, we did not have access to the internet, Photoshop or Illustrator and every drawing was researched in the Library or using Citroen Brochures and books. Each car was drawn by hand on A2 paper, using a compass set, Rotring pens and French curves. The wheels were drawn by hand and then photocopied and reduced to scale, stuck on my drawings and then the whole drawing was reduced to A4. This was a very long process and cost quite a bit in photocopying. Now we have the luxury of the internet to do research, Adobe Creative Suite, digitial airbrushing, PDF publications - as well as the good old fashioned books and brochures.

This book is a point in my project which allows me to collate all my material. Some would say I need a hobby. After 38 plus years, I think I may have stepped beyond a hobby into obsession.

How do you organise 6783 cars? The main chapters represent the main models ordered by date of first manufacture. Some models might be 1967, but were actually introduced in September of 1966, so I have included them in 1966.

This book is the first publication and is actually a much smaller version of the final book - or books. The original runs into 1000+ pages with larger scale drawings and lots of pictures, a full list of all 6783 vehicles and a complete bibliography. This version had to be cut back to less than 500 pages, so please know that the drawings are now a much smaller scale at 1:35 scale as to the original at 1:24 scale. The larger cars in this book are in 1:12 scale. These have been included in the book to show off the detail and to simply be enjoyed.

There are chapters which were not completed in time, so have not been included. Instead, I created the “first 9 years” and the “last 10 years” chapters to consolidate some of my work.

Some things to note.

Citroën produced hundreds of different models between 1919 and the introduction of the Traction Avante in 1933. Each of these have been painstakingly drawn. It was not until the Traction Avante that various levels of luxury were offered with a limited number of body platforms. This made it much more economical and sustainable to mass produce cars.

To the authors of the Citroën books I have read, thank you for many hours of interesting reading and for your dedication to the Marque. A special thanks to Pierre Dumont whose paintings inspired me to push my artwork to photo realism and to appreciate all the little details. Thank you to Rene Bellu and Jean-Pierre Delville who created the book “Toutes les Citroen” which allowed me to complete the first 60 years of Citroën in full detail.

To those who have uploaded many pages of information onto the internet and have maintained those web pages with current information, thank you also. In this presentation, I have included information from books, magazines, websites, and from friends. As mentioned, my contribution to Citroëndom is my artwork, as well as one of the few books which contains every model and variation I have been able to find to date.

I only hope that there are those out there who enjoy my drawings as much as I have in creating them.

I dedicate this book to Jo, Chani, PavlovaSon, and Elohim, without whom this book would not be possible. Thank you to all my friends who have helped and supported me over the many years.

Guido Verschoor (February 2021)