24n Citroën Traction Avant 11 CV (1949-1958)

Terry,This ruins the theory that the pilot lot Tractions with big boot still had the tinplate front bumper as on the photo below and on the 1953 catalogue (page 4) See Terry's post at the top of this page. 700 300 Your friend's model is the oposite to this one with the spare wheel cover (not tyre) and solid front bumper. I would very much apreciate if for the Encyclopaedia your friend could provide better pictures of the model 3/4 front and rear without flash and confirm that the colour of the hubs is cream. Kind regards. Jacques.

Hi Terry, Tom, your friend, visited me last Friday - living only half an hour's drive from me - and I took some pictures. Unfortunately he nor me has a first type Traction Avant in the collection, so I could only make a photographic comparison with his final version (as is my grey one next to it). Behold and compare! Kind regards Jan

JanThanks so much for taking the time to visit with my Dinky friend Tom and his somewhat unique Traction Avant. The comparison photos do show one obvious detail quite well: that this apparently first version with a cast-in front bumper had a much more significant dip to it than the later production versions of the second version with the boot. I am now wondering if this was a brief try or experiment with the new front bumper, but then a decision was quickly made to create a whole new model, with many refinements, using a new die. Jacques, it appears to me that possibly this early cast in front bumper was accomplished by modifying the early die? What do you think? And this certainly appears to be a very rare variation, as no one has seen it before, which is astonishing to me. Jan....one final question: did you happen to take some individual photos of this version as well, such as Jacques could use in his Encyclopedia? The original owner told Tom many years ago that he thought the model may have been restored, meaning the-painted. The baseplate rivets do look original from his photos, but the headlights do not....they are hollow from the front. Have they been replaced?Best regards, Terry

Hi everyone. - of course the headlights are not original - it looks to me that the colour of the front hubs is different of the rear ones but perhaps it is a question of light ! - it seems that the colour of the inside parts of the hubs are not yellow or sand. Here also light variations ? Anyway, the front of the baseplate has been tampered ! This was probably not made in Bobigny. When the studies office tried new variations on an existing model , or the baseplate was not fitted or they used a clean one. Kind regards Richard

Hi folks! Everything is repainted on this example and (of course) the headlights are replacements. As I have the model still at my disposal I will take some more detailed pictures, in due time. Kind regards, Jan

Looking at Jan's picture, it is obvious that the model is not a mock-up made in Bobigny. The bumper is too high, it should be below the mud guards and it's shape is wrong. The lines on the roof show that the model has been brush painted. If it was original, the R & D guys would have used original headlights which were readily available in the factory store at the time. So it will be listed in the Encyclopaedia as a fake, not an original Dinky Toys. This is the proper mock-up of the Traction with large boot and still the tinplate bumper. Now a question remains open, did the 1953 traction have a curved or straight front bumper ? I can not answer this question.

Some extra details below:

Hard to photograph and I'm not very familiar with the first type - but could this be a lug holding the previous tinplate bumper?

Jan, Your photo is great. This could be a lug from the previous bumper but this is very unlikely as the two lugs would have come out with the tin plate bumper. It is more likely to be resin from the new bumper which linked through the rectangular hole used to attach the tinplate bumper. Try to test it with a pin, it should feel different from metal. The colour also looks like resin. An other evidence to confirm that this is a repaint, the inside of the hubs is not painted. Have fun.Jacques

Following Jacques question about the bumper of a 1953 Citron Traction Avant, I found these photos of a 1953 Traction Avant (long version) on Catawiki. Jan O.