CHRISTIAN HENRY TAVARD ‘LA PETITE ROSALIE’ DES RECORDS DES 300.000 KMS MARS-JUILLET 1933 - 8CH CITROËN 1932

Lot 88
1 8002 500
inscription ‘‘CHRISTIAN H.G.H. TAVARD/ COPYRIGHT X-78’ (in the middle) original drawing Indian ink on tracing paper 38 x 75 cm Provenance: collection of the Musée de l'Automobiliste in Mougins, South of France (1984 – 2008), created by Adrien Maeght, son of Aimé Maeght, famous French art dealer, collector, lithographer, and publisher; Private collection, Monaco. The Rosalie was presented for the first time at the Paris Motor Show in the autumn of 1932. The elegant Citroën 8CV, nicknamed the Petite Rosalie, is the smallest model in the series. In 1933, the "Petite Rosalie" sets the world distance record. On 15 March, it set off on the Linas-Monthléry autodrome and stopped 134 days later, on 27 July, with 300,000 kilometers on the clock, covered at an average speed of 93 km/h. André Citroën promised three million francs to anyone who broke this distance record before 1935, which did not happen. CHRISTIAN HENRY TAVARD was a specialist in technical drawing, and the editor-in-chief of the famous magazine "L'Automobiliste" created by Adrien Maeght in the 1980s.