Back in the early days of the Internet (1995 to be precise) I went on line for the first time and being a Citroën fanatic opened up my browser and ran a search on 'Citroen'.

The search engine came up with a grand total of seventeen sites, one of which was the Citroën Connection in Canada. I somewhat hesitantly sent an e-mail to Blair Anderson, the Webmaster - little did I realise that this would be the beginning of but one of many enduring friendships.

Some of the sites were, it must be said, rather uninteresting - a picture of somebody's car and some text saying "This is a picture of my car" Blair's site wasn't like that and over the years, he has proved to be an inspirational mentor.

For years, Blair hosted my site on his own dedicated Apple server but eventually it became too large and attracted such high volumes of traffic that he was unable to continue with the arrangement.

In 1995, I volunteered to help design the Citroën Car Club site and with Adrian Chapman, we put together the original site. (Adrian has subsequently redesigned the site.) The raison d'être of the Citroën Car Club site was recruitment but while working on it, I realised that I had such a wealth of material, that I might just as well create my own site.

Thus Citroënët was born. Originally it covered only one topic - a reprint of an article originally published in the Citroënian about the fabled D Sport. Over the years, it has grown and expanded to well over a thousand pages devoted to all aspects of the marque including details of Citroën's production cars, prototypes, concept and show vehicles, commercial cars, resources for the Citroën fan such as book lists, calendars, e-mail lists, memorabilia, screensavers, articles, etc.

I currently drive a C5 HDi Exclusive, the latest in a long line of Citroëns.

The company was founded in 1919 by André Citroën and the first cars went on sale that year. 

He employed mass production techniques for the first time in the European automotive industry and was also the first to set up a service agent network.

If early models were not particularly unusual in terms of technology and styling, all this would change with the release in 1934 of the Traction Avant which set the pattern, some 50 years ahead of its time, for the modern motor car. No chassis, front wheel drive, aerodynamic coachwork, excellent handling and roadholding, attention paid to safety, etc.

Unfortunately, André Citroën died shortly after this car was launched and shortly after he had lost control of his company to tyre makers Michelin. 

Prior to the birth of the Traction, Citroën had mastered the art of publicity with advertising campaigns the like of which had never been seen before - the Eiffel Tower illuminated with his name and the company logo, trans-continental journeys, the setting of endurance records, etc.

Citroën is renowned for its use of advanced technology - high pressure hydraulics - first shown to an astonished world in the mid 1950s - with the fitting of self-levelling suspension which offers absolutely unrivalled ride comfort and for the first reliable application of front wheel drive in the mid 1930s. The hydropneumatic system is still in use on the current C5 and C6 because over 50 years on, nothing can touch it.

The launch in 1949 of the 2CV confounded the critics - here was a car which was so different from its contemporaries that it was doomed to fail. Slow and ugly, it was the antithesis of the post war offerings of other manufacturers - and yet it was to have a production run that spanned five decades and generated enthusiasm bordering on the fanatical. 

The single most important event in automotive history (after the invention of the wheel and had it been thought necessary and possible to reinvent that, then that too would have been part of the design) occurred in 1955 - the DS19.

In the 1960s, the company acquired automotive pioneers Panhard et Levassor and in 1968 acquired Italian manufacturer Maserati.

Citroën was acquired by Peugeot in the mid 1970s and under their control, much of what set Citroën apart from other motor manufacturers was discarded. However, in the run up to its 90th birthday in 2009 the company seems to have rediscovered itself and modern products are far more innovative than they have been of late.