{"id":26475,"date":"2022-10-17T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/?p=26475"},"modified":"2024-10-17T18:36:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T16:36:02","slug":"this-time-citroen-wont-sue-renault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/?p=26475","title":{"rendered":"The Citro\u00ebn – Renault trial never happened"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than sixty years ago, Renault presented its R4, which made the Citro\u00ebn boss of the time, Pierre Bercot, scream. For him, the R4 was nothing but a plagiarism of his 2CV. You will read below the manuscripts of the Citro\u00ebn boss who was ready to sue the then R\u00e9gie Renault\u2026 Today, peace reigns between the two manufacturers. Gilles Vidal, the head of Renault design, may have started his career with\u2026 Citro\u00ebn, he can cross paths with Pierre Leclercq, Citro\u00ebn’s design boss, without deviating from his course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In his book “Mes ann\u00e9es aux usines Citro\u00ebn” (private document, “la pens\u00e9e universelle”), the post-war Citro\u00ebn boss, Pierre Bercot, describes the detestable relationship he had with his counterpart at the R\u00e9gie Renault, Pierre Dreyfus. In more than twenty pages, he describes his determination to sue for unfair competition by asserting and detailing in writing the similarities between his 2CV and the R\u00e9gie’s R4. A trial that never took place because, as Pierre Bercot writes, “Citro\u00ebn was made to understand that they would not plead against the State”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Each of these two cars is only at the prototype stage. The 2CV TPV of 1939 and the R4 in testing in 1960\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“One day in November 1958, a meeting organised by a local private banker took place at Michelin’s premises on Boulevard Pereire. The initiative had been taken by the President of the R\u00e9gie Renault. In addition to himself, the managers of Michelin and the representatives of Citro\u00ebn were present (\u2026) The President of the R\u00e9gie asked Michelin to give him a majority stake in Citro\u00ebn, making a point of paying for it within two years with the help of the State. The answer was negative, without discussion and firmly negative. The applicant insisted (\u2026) and the answer remained no. And the President of the R\u00e9gie, at the end of his patience, stood up, banging his fist on the table and concluded the meeting with the following words: “That’s fine, I’ll use all the means at my disposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The tubular frame of the seats, common to both cars, made the Citro\u00ebn boss choke in 1961.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“It has been said everywhere that the R4 was an imitation of the 2CV (\u2026) The list is long of the design and manufacturing elements that Renault copied purely and simply from Citro\u00ebn. Renault used these elements without the expenses incurred and the years of study to achieve these results being shared in the burden that this constituted for Citro\u00ebn. (\u2026)”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The famous gearshift lever, common to both cars.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Renault waited until the Citro\u00ebn experiment had produced its results before adopting it purely and simply and reaping the fruits of its studies (\u2026) Renault went to the end of its evil deed; it wanted this copy to be seen: the design and the shape of the seats of the R4 are exactly the same as those of the 2CV; the gear change is reproduced exactly in its external shape on the R4 (\u2026).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The advertising presentations in the leaflets are themselves identical (see above). Renault at the show shows a family having lunch on the grass, sitting on the benches that were taken out of the car: this is indeed the image that Citro\u00ebn had more than once presented itself to customers.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In order not to push the copy too far, eggs have been replaced by apples at Renault!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There followed a long exchange of letters from Pierre Bercot to his counterpart at the R\u00e9gie. The first letter was sent to Billancourt in October 1961. It mentions the common elements between the 2CV and the R4: “(\u2026) the front end of the body is identical in every respect to that of our car. These new solutions were adopted by the R\u00e9gie, which had no expense to find them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The R4 was not the R\u00e9gie’s first front-wheel drive vehicle. The Estafette preceded it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“It appears to us that Renault’s 3-4CV car is a copy, in many respects, of the 2CV and that the R\u00e9gie Renault has not complied with the rules of fair competition. In 1962, meetings between Citro\u00ebn representatives and the Ministry of Industry took place, without any conclusive result. “A second and then a third letter (in 1963) were again sent without more success. All this left the affair to fester and gave rise to an enormous resentment for Pierre Bercot towards the R\u00e9gie. In the end, it was not Renault who bought Citro\u00ebn, but\u2026 Peugeot, in 1974.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More than sixty years ago, Renault presented its R4, which made the Citro\u00ebn boss of the time, Pierre Bercot, scream. For him, the R4 was nothing but a plagiarism of his 2CV. You will read below the manuscripts of the Citro\u00ebn boss who was ready to sue the then R\u00e9gie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26475"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35753,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26475\/revisions\/35753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lignesauto.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}