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On one of his trips to the USA, André Citroën
visited the Budd company who had developed an industrial process for
manufacturing car bodies entirely out of steel. Originally developed
for the construction of railway coaches and buses, the system could be
readily adapted for use in motor cars. Hitherto, Citroën, along with
nearly all other motor manufacturers built car bodies in the
traditional manner - out of wood, leather and metal. The Budd process
was revolutionary since it resulted in a very strong structure that
resisted deformation and which was also very much safer in the event of
an accident than the traditional bodywork.
In
1924, upon his return to Paris, Citroën instructed the Bureau d'Etudes
to apply this new process to the new Type B and he sent numerous
engineers to Budd to work out the subtleties of the new process.
Presses weighing 1400 tonnes were ordered from Budd and within a matter
of a few months, much to the astonishment of Budd's engineers, Citroën
had a production line up and running at the Quai de Javel.
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