Citroën TUB
| Citroën TUB/TUC | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | Citroën |
| Also called | Citroën Traction Utilitaire Basse Citroën Traction Utilitaire type B Citroën Traction Utilitaire type C |
| Production | 1939 – 1941 |
| Body and chassis | |
| Class | Van |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 4,040 mm (159 in) |
| Width | 1,960 mm (77 in) |
| Height | 2,130 mm (84 in) |
| Chronology | |
| Predecessor | None |
| Successor | Citroën H |
The Citroën TUB (from the French Traction Utilitaire Basse or Traction Utilitaire type B) was a light van derived from the Traction Avant passenger car. The van was produced by Citroën between 1939 and 1941. In May 1941 an upgraded version, the Citroën TUC replaced the TUB, but by the end of that year the last of these vans had probably been produced.
The TUB is the first commercial vehicle ever equipped with a lateral sliding door.
and Pierre-Jules Boulanger, were parachuted in to take charge of Citroën by Michelin following their acquisition of the bankrupt auto-maker in December 1934. During the Summer of 1936 Boulanger received the results of an extensive investigation of customer requirements that he had commissioned. The exercise had been undertaken in preparation for the development of a van of approximately 800 kg (1,764 lb) capacity - slightly more than the load that could be accommodated by a simple car based van. Boulanger accumulated a fat dossier of photographs, statistics, sketches and comments. From this he laid down a specification which, characteristically, was both simple and demanding. In order to maximise available load space, the new van must position the driver as far forwards as possible on the chassis. It should be possible to stand up in the vehicle, and the load area should be directly accessible from the driving seat, without any need to get out of the vehicle. In addition to conventionally positioned doors at the back, the load area of the new van should have a door on the pavement side in order to facilitate loading and unloading. The decision had already been taken to base the new van on the running gear of the company's recently introduced front-engined front-wheel drive Citroën Traction, which would make it easier to meet Boulanger's brief because, in the absence of any under-floor drive shaft, the floor of the load space could be kept low.
The Citroën product development department had the first prototype running by the Autumn of 1937, and on 12 May 1939 the van was homologated for sale in the French market. Although low floored vans with the driver set well forwards and sliding side-door on the pavement side would have become relatively mainstream twenty years later, in the 1930s the radical new van was quite unlike anything else available.
The van took its 4-cylinder 35 hp (26 kW) engine, initially of 1628 cc, from the company's Traction 7C. In the car the engine sat comfortably just behind the front wheels, but in the van most of the engine's weight, along with the driver's feet, was ahead of the front wheels. The driver's cab was raised sufficiently to allow most of the mechanical elements to be installed beneath it, although the engine itself intruded from the front into the central portion of the cab. The floor of the load area was just 42 cm (16 inches) above ground level, and it was possible for anyone less than 175 cm tall to stand in it without needing to stoop. Access from the driver's seat to the load area behind was excellent, especially since on the right side of the driver's cab there was normally no second seat fitted. The side door on the pavement side was a sliding door, and in this respect another radical innovation in contemporary terms. The sliding door on the right of the load area was fashioned from light-weight low cost materials. On each side of the load area, the upper side portions of the van's sides consisted tarpaulin-material curtains, incorporating little windows of flexible plastic. Again, the emphasis was on avoiding complexity, saving weight and minimising cost. On the left-side, there being here no side door, the curtain ran the full length of the load area and could be rolled up and fixed to the roof edge, revealing a load space in excess of 6 cubic meters. The overall result was a structure which combined extreme practicality with extreme simplicity. The spare wheel and battery were stored in a locker on the left side of the van, accessible from the outside but completely sealed off from the load area. Production of the van's bodywork was entrusted to a coach building firm called Fernand Genève.
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