I'll forget these if I don't put them here, having just read them in a library book. I hadn't heard them before.
Citroen: in the thirties, Andre Citroen saw a millwright making gears with a strange herringbone pattern. The gears ran very smoothly and quietly. He bought the patent, and applied it to his car gears.
To this day, the Citroen logo represents that herringbone gear.
Peugeot: in the twenties, Peugeot brought out a new model they were to call the 21. When the metal numbers were applied to the front of the car, the hole for the starting handle sat in the middle, so it looked like 201. They went with 201 and then stuck with that nomenclature. When much later Porsche were going to call their new car the 901, Peugeot objected and so Porsche renamed it the 911.
I hope these are true. They were in a brilliant book about the development of the Merlin engine, with many highways and byways of engineering and intriguing characters too.
It's called Merlin, by Graham Hoyland, if anyone is interested.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 8 Oct 20 at 15:13
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Bits of car trivia new
Bits of car trivia new
