21 French Citroen Traction Avants take over Mijas Pueblo square

Twenty-one Citroen Traction Avant classics rolled into Mijas Pueblo on Monday, September 28 and filled Plaza Virgen de la Peña for a free four-hour display. Locals and visitors could walk around the cars from 1pm to 5pm. Most of the fleet dates back to the 1930s to the 1950s.

French club on an Andalucia run

The car owners and drivers belong to Tractions Sans Frontieres, a French association that tours the world in these low-slung saloons. This Andalucia trip started on September 17 and finishes on October 3, 2026. Malaga’s Automobile and Fashion Museum was the previous stop in the province. However, the following stops are being kept under the hats of the drivers for now. Club members have already driven the same model through Malaysia, Canada, Thailand, Argentina, New Zealand and Norway.

Why this Citroen still turns heads

Citroen built the Traction Avant (French for ‘front.wheel drive) from 1934 to 1957 and sold about 760,000. With a steel monocoque body, hydraulic brakes and independent suspension on all four wheels arrived together in a family saloon years before most rivals caught up. Roadholding was so good the car picked up the nickname Queen of the Road. French films later tied it to both Resistance fighters and postwar gangsters. Anyone restoring or importing one to Spain should check the current historic-vehicle rules because even back then it was considered experimental.

Brief stop in a busy village square

Plaza Virgen de la Peña is the same patch of cobbles used for Tourist Day paella and other village events, so a line of black and grey Tractions looked quite at home. Fans who missed Monday can still catch the convoy elsewhere in Andalucia before October 3, or wait for bigger indoor meets such as Retro Malaga.

More on the car’s engineering is on Wikipedia’s Traction Avant page and Citroen’s 90th-anniversary briefing.