Innovation doesn’t always mean success.
Walking through a recent car show near Detroit, I was knocked out of a trance by an odd-looking French car with giant steel bulges and metal valve knobs that would have looked more in place on an older home’s plumbing system, or even on a locomotive, rather than on an automobile.
It was sitting next to one of Chrysler’s infamous turbine cars, they were both part of an “alternative power” display at the Concours d’Elegance of America at The Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth, Mich. The car was a 1938 Citroën Berline 11 Gazogene. The “Traction Avant” had been converted to burning coal for motivation. (Continue Reading)