On the right tracks: Kégresse's Citroëns to be honoured at Rétromobile

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For years, the dark heart of Africa presented an irresistable challenge to the motoring adventurer. The idea of a trans-Continental railway running from Cape Town to Cairo, a distance of 3,495 miles, was a grand imperial dream which never came to fruition. Even as engineers and construction workers grappled with the difficulties of laying tracks through impenetrable jungles and crossing raging rivers, there was a certain breed of plucky European who fancied that he could traverse the continent by motor before any train would be up to the task.

Ultimately, the motorists would win, but not without several failed attempts and even loss of life. Tom Silver of the Quadrant company attempted a crossing in 1903 aboard one of the firm's motorcycles, and impressively rode from Cape Town to the Soudan before having to abandon his mission. In 1913, army veteran Captain Raleigh Napier Kelsey, with sponsorship from the Daily Telegraph, attempted the expedition in a specially-prepared but unwieldy Argyll. His journey was dogged by ill fortune almost from the very beginning, and ended most unhappily when he was savaged by a leopard while on a hunting excursion; after many painful days, he succumbed to his wounds in a missionary outpost. The Cape-to-Cairo crossing was finally completed in January, 1926, when the famous Court Treatt expedition conducted its two Crossley 25/30hp light trucks into Egypt after 17 months of travelling but, infuriatingly for the English, a French team of Citroëns had successfully crossed Africa in other direction just months before...

Citroën owed its success to Adolphe Kégresse (1879-1943), a French engineer who travelled to Russia as a young man to work on the railways. A chance encounter with Czar Nicholas II. led to him becoming employed by the Czar as a mechanic, and in 1905 he was placed in charge of the entire imperial garage. Over the years, he maintained and drove examples of various luxurious marques, including Benz, Russo-Balt and Packard. It is said that the Czar was frustrated by the inability to go motoring during Russia's harsh winters, so Kégresse began to experiment with fitting driven tracks to the Czar's cars; the design was patented in 1913. His efforts had much in common with a modern snowmobile, while at the same time looking as if they had been devised by an illustrator of humorous Edwardian Christmas cards; in addition to tracks taking the place of the rear wheels, skis were also fitted to the front wheels, and behind the car could be pulled a sled containing benches for multiple passengers.

Despite serving in the Russian Army when war broke out, Kégresse, who had started a family in 1904, naturally left Russia as presentiments concerning revolution grew stronger by the day, although he may not have had anything to fear, for Lenin himself was pleased to have the Kégresse system fitted to his own humbly-chosen Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost...

A one-track mind?

After an unhappy stint in Finland, Kégresse returned to his home town of Héricourt and made the acquaintance of Georges Schwob d'Hericourt, formerly chairman of the Citroën gear company. He was then introduced to Jacques Hinstin, André Citroën's business partner, and by 1920 the first of many Citroën-Kégresse auto-chenilles had been built. These modified Type A Citroëns were tested that October on unmade land in Saint-Denis, and a satisfied Citroën proceeded to protect Kégresse's work by securing a patent in the name of Citroën-Kégresse-Hinstin.

From there, the Citroën-Kégresses courted publicity with with demonstrations in the Alps and Pyrenees, as well as an ascent of the steps Hôtel Régina. Numerous auto-chenilles would be constructed through the 1920s, for civilian and military purposes, but the most famous were those used for trans-continental expeditions. The first of these was a crossing of the Sahara in December, 1922, which served as a precusor to the celebrated Black Journey (Croisière noire), which started from Colomb-Béchar, Algeria, in October, 1924, and arrived in Cape Town in June, 1925. This was followed by the Yellow Expedition (Croisière jaune) across Asia, in which two teams of Citroën-Kégresses successfully navigated central Asia, spanning the distance between Beirut and Peking.

The Citroën-Kégresse partnership came to an end when Citroën went bankrupt in 1934 and was taken over by Michelin. Kégresse then established SEK (Société d'Exploitation Kégresse), where he worked on automatic gearboxes and dealt with American clients, giving rise to the familiar U.S. Army half-tracks of the Second World War. When he died, he had over 200 patents to his name, but had destroyed many of his plans to prevent them falling into enemy hands during the German occupation of France.

One hundred years after the trans-African journey was fulfilled, Kégresse's outstanding feats of engineering are to be honoured with a special exhibiton at Salon Rétromobile. No fewer than 12 Kégresse half-tracks will be on display, not only including surviving civilian versions but also a Model K1 used in the first Sahara crossing, and a P19 from the Croisière jaune.

If you'd like to see this exceptional gathering, along with hundreds of others of rare and exotic pre- and post-war cars, pay a visit to Salon Rétromobile at the Expo Porte de Versailles, Paris, from February 5th to 9th. More information and tickets are available here.

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