Poissy Automobile Plant
The Poissy Automobile Plant is a factory that has been making cars since 1940. It is located in the town of Poissy in the French Yvelines department, directly on the Seine . It has had different owners over the years; Today it belongs to the PSA group ( Peugeot Citroën ), which builds around 180,000 Peugeot 207 , Peugeot 207 SW and Citroën DS3 cars there per year .
In 1937, Ford's US headquarters announced that it would build a car factory in Poissy and control the French business from there. Before that, Ford had no production capacity of its own in France and cooperated with the Strasbourg manufacturer Mathis . During the western campaign , Poissy was occupied by troops of the German Wehrmacht on June 14, 1940 . In the following time the German Ford works in Cologne determined the production in France. During the war the plant was bombed several times, but was able to produce without interruptions of a few weeks. Shortly after the end of the Battle of Paris , the plant was occupied by the US Army on August 26, 1944 . Maurice Dollfus , who was responsible for Ford’s French business from 1930 to 1949, was interned as a collaborator in Drancy , but was released after a short time to continue his work.
From 1949 the Ford Vedette was produced in Poissy . In 1954, Ford France was taken over by Simca . The new owner invested in the plant and by 1958 made it the most modern plant in Europe at the time. In 1958 Simca also took over the car manufacturer Talbot . The Ford Vedette rolled off the production line in Poissy under the new name Simca Vedette until 1961. In the same year the Simca 1000 was launched , which was to be produced until 1978. In the 1960s, Chrysler increasingly took over shares in Simca and in 1970 changed its name to Chrysler France .
On August 10, 1978, Chrysler sold its European business to the Peugeot Group , which also took control of the Poissy plant. From 1979 to 1996 Peugeot ran the factory under the brand name Talbot and built the Talbot Horizon there until 1985 , as well as the Peugeot 104 , 205 and the Peugeot 309 from 1985. From 1992 to 2002 the Peugeot was produced in Poissy 306 . The Citroën DS3 and the Citroën C3 have been built there since 2008 . At the beginning of 2013, the Citroën DS3 convertible was added to the production range.
In 2009, the Poissy automobile plant employed around 6,600 people. Cyrille Courtier has been the plant manager since 2009. In 2003, the Peugeot Group built a service center in the immediate vicinity of the plant, which offers an additional 4500 jobs.
Web links
Page from PSA to the plant in Poissy
literature
- Nicolas Hatzfeld: Poissy, une légende automobile , ETAI, 2002, ISBN 2-7268-8520-9
Coordinates: 48 ° 56 '35 " N , 2 ° 3' 9.5" E