The weirdest, greatest supercar you'll ever see

C'EST MAGNIFIQUE!

Robin of Omaha recently sent these pics of a true oddity. Even in stellar condition its not surprising to see this ride hunkered down at the mechanic as it is fearsomely complicated. Behold!

This is a 1972-1973 Citroën SM in Jaune Bouton d'Or (also known as Buttercup Yellow). This thing was so ahead of its time that it shouldn't even be gauged against other automotive makes.
While we're staring this thing in the face let's talk about the main visual difference between the European and U.S. models. In France the SM had 6 square headlights placed behind angled glass like the middle panel above. Also in France the headlights turned with the front wheels! The glass cover and turning ability of the lights were both illegal in the U.S. which is why we can't have nice things. 

Just look at this strange creature. It could be from outer space or the depths of the ocean. The body is extremely aerodynamic which helped take advantage of perhaps the most incredible feature of the SM: it came from the factory with a Maserati V6 motor under the hood!
Those wheels are steel with stainless trim. If you preferred a lighter weight rim they offered a first-ever carbon fiber resin wheel option. As long as this thing is it won all kinds of rallies and races when introduced. When it hit these shores it won the Motor Trend Car of the Year award, a rarity for a non-domestic model at the time.

Top speed from the factory was listed at 140mph; no small feat for an early '70s luxury touring car. It is fitted with the self leveling hydro-pneumatic suspension that was made famous by the earlier DS. Four wheel disc brakes provided for the shortest stopping distance of any car tested up to that point. The suspension system was set up so that under hard braking the car would lower evenly.

The styling is so awesomely French!
Supposedly you could drive this car for hours at 120mph with no discomfort, achieving 19 mpg the whole time. The steering took some serious getting used to however. It is a unique variable powered assist that allowed for no road feel at all. Citroën recommended 50 miles of careful driving to get used to the steering as it was so sensitive. I've never driven (or ridden) in one of these but accounts are that once you get over the learning curve other cars feel archaic and old fashioned to steer.

To add to the futurism the windshield wipers detect rain when set to the lowest setting and will turn on and off as needed. This is a feature just becoming more common now. If we could pop the hood you would see a bizarre sight; a pair of honeydew melon sized spheres painted forest green are on the top sides of the motor, attached to two green tanks. They are the hydro-pneumatic suspension components but they look crazy to the uninitiated.
This car came about because Citroën bought Maserati in 1968 and they decided to marry the high performance motor to this design which was already years in the making. Unfortunately that means maintaining one of these involves a Maserati specialist and a Citroën mechanic.
The lovely sensualists of France underestimated the immovable and indifferent federal safety regulators of the U.S. and assumed they would get an exemption to the 5mph crash safety bumper regulations coming due in 1974. They did not and as a result the SM stopped being imported overnight. It is a shame as this car represented a bright future in automotive design where speed, efficiency, and pure style could work in harmony. Instead we kept producing bloated dinosaurs until the industry almost totally collapsed at the end of the decade.
Viva la France (and Italy)!

London Tony offers up a beat-down merde gris croûté from across the pond!

SHITROËN PART DEUX

My own brother lives in a lovely little storybook village in London. It's the sort of place where A-list celebrities can stroll to a cafe without being bothered, where rose gardens abound in the front yards of bucolic little homes, and where gas-lit streets can suddenly turn into brick paths with views of the city below. However London is huge, and somewhere along the way he stumbled upon this fallen child star: 

 

Oof. My best guess is that this is a 1988-ish Citroën CX in Gris. Actually we know this is a CX 25 DTR Turbo 2 from the cartoonishly long nameplate on the back. The brochure for this ride back in 1988 stated THE CITROËN CX. ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT CARS. Lofty salesmanship to be sure but it was indeed something else when new. For now just dig how long this thing is!

 

The first thing I said when this brick weighed down my inbox was "how did this thing get an MOT?" The MOT stands for Ministry of Transport and it is the equivalent of an automobile safety and emissions inspection in the States. The test is pretty difficult when compared to most countries in that the condition of the body, including spoilers, wings, and any additional doo-dads all needs to be in good shape. The final pass or fail grade is up to the tester and the test is not cheap.
Look at this funky facade; the grill is creased in a way to have a trapezoidal front. The headlight on the right is nicotine stained and generally unhealthy looking. the last time this crumpled body was washed by anything but rainfall was probably the day before it was bought new. 

 

This rather frumpy shooting break (the British term for a station wagon though in its French homeland this would be known as a break-de-chasse, or hunting-break) was the height of technology when it was first introduced in 1974. It was the modern replacement for the iconic DS from the '50s. The most incredible aspect of this design is the Hydro-Pneumatic suspension that was self-leveling. Supposedly the suspension was so effective that bumps and potholes could be seen but not really felt. Rolls-Royce even licensed the suspension design for their Silver Shadow!

The letters CX refer to aerodynamic design (CX is the French equivalent of Cd for drag coefficient according to my friend Wikipedia). One misconception is that the name CX was chosen because it was originally designed to be powered by a rotary engine. However like almost every company that isn't Mazda they couldn't get it right in time and on budget so a traditional inline 4 cylinder was installed under the hood.

I love how they manage to add cool style cues in the era of sharp angles. That crease below the side view mirror fades towards the rear while another emerges above it for a little origami.

 

A hooptie is a hooptie the world over so here's some tape used as a repair. This is particularly troubling because it looks like it was holding the skirt onto the vehicle but the tape is now mostly missing.

One wiper in the front and one in the back. That 4 slot vent on the rear pillar is probably functional as a part of the ventilation system for the passenger compartment. The turbocharger breathes through some small openings on a slight bulge on the hood.

 

The interior is gnarly! We've got paper jammed everywhere, a spoon at the ready, rags tossed about, and a grody blue pillow for the drivers bum. It is a stick shift which means this would've been fun to cruise in when new. These days who knows how much action you'll find if you mash the pedal to the floor.
This is the sort of car you almost never see in the States. Citroëns are always rare on this side of the pond but when you do encounter one is tends to be a tiny 2CV or the classic DS. There was even a Citroën SM from the early '70s powered by a Maserati engine that seems more common than the CX. Regardless the MOT gave this one a stay of execution so if you happen to be walking around London keep your eyes peeled!   

There was a spaceship parked in Greenwich Village on the coldest day of the year

MULTICOLORE FORCE INTÉRIEURE
This car will single-handedly prove how misguided the stereotype of French surrendering is. Take it all in; this is a seriously complicated 43 year old French car living through winter on the streets of Manhattan. Steadfast, loyal, persistent, and durable are the nicknames I bestow upon this beast!
*PS - yes the person in the background is wearing pants.

Under this coat of many colors lies an incredibly important milestone in automotive history. I will break routine here and offer a direct quote from Wikipedia that sums it up nicely;
"After 18 years of secret development as the successor to the Traction Avant, the DS 19 was introduced on 5 October 1955 at the Paris Motor Show." Now let's think about this for a moment; 18 years before the debut of the DS means that research and development on this ride started back in 1937! 18 years in automotive design is a lifetime, but when the DS was introduced it still managed to set the other cars on the road back by 10 years. When you consider what France went through during those 18 years it becomes all the more remarkable.

We know automatically that this car was meant to be sold new in America because the headlights are exposed. The original European edition has a glass lens covering each headlight pod. Up close you can see the sweet styling details that make this car so sweet; reflective trim piece under the headlight corner, curved front bumper, and that funky little turn signal emerging from its concave home.

Another even more unfortunate omission on the U.S. model is the lack of directional headlights. Starting with the 1968 European DS the inner headlights turned with the direction of the steering wheel up to a whopping 80°! Why this ingenious feature wasn't allowed in the States is a question of bureaucracy.

This car looks modern today but in 1955 when the first ones were introduced it really looked like nothing anyone had ever seen. The beautiful looks can be attributed to an Italian sculptor named Flaminio Bertoni, while the groundbreaking technology under the skin is credited to Aeronautical Engineer André Lefèbvre. And the technology of this ride was groundbreaking, with myriad advances in ride quality, handling, and braking. While marketed as a luxury ride the DS went on to prove itself a great rally car, winning the Monte Carlo twice and competing strongly all the way up through the mid-'70s.

I dig the cool DS emblems on the sail panels.

Having the rear turn signals mounted so high up is a great safety feature. On this futuristic cruiser they look more like jet engines propelling this into outer space.

Part of the reason this car handles so well is that the entire roof is fiberglass which makes for a very low center of gravity. The DS also sports a fully hydropneumatic independent suspension, inboard brakes (where the brakes are mounted to the inner part of the axle as opposed to the wheels. Jaguar XKEs used these too), and front wheel drive. The hydropneumatic suspension allowed the car to be self-leveling as well as offer a variable ride height. In postwar Europe the roads were pretty beat up, but the DS would deliver a soft and luxurious ride over even the worst surfaces.

Enough fawning already; let's take a moment to enjoy just how multicolored and patinaed this car is! Most of the trim pieces and brightwork are still present with the exception of the rear corners. The trunk looks to have been sourced from some desert junkyard where the paint with dissolve in the sun and blowing sand. The amount of salt all over the sides tells me this has been parked on the city streets for a while where the plow trucks cruise by spraying salt with enough force to reach the sidewalks.

That double chevron emblem on the trunk is the logo for Citroen by the way.

Here we get a good idea of just how low the car sits when parked. In true lowrider fashion the rear of the DS would raise up by 4 or 5 inches when the car was started.

Such an odd shape overall. Just look at the line of the hood that is basically an S curve. Beat-down and heavily used this thing looks bizarre and menacing. In great shape with a nice coat of paint and all trim shiny it can cut quite the dashing presence though. 

That funky front wheel is pure Citroen. I believe the company used this exact wheel for everything from the diminutive 2CV and plastic-bodied Méhari all the way up to their "large" delivery trucks (still small by U.S. standards). The only difference I can reckon is that the smaller cars had 3 lugs per wheel while the larger had 5. Imagine the perils of losing a lug nut when you start with only 3!

The interior is in a condition similar to the exterior, but you can still see how well appointed and classy it once was. The steering wheel has only one spoke going from the center to the rim. I don't know what was standard or optional on these cars but this one is definitely loaded with am/fm radio and air conditioning. Look like someone elected to install and under-dash removable stereo at some point (most likely the late '80s/early '90s because when was the last time you saw one of those?).
*One cutesy but correct detail is the Michelin Man air freshener hanging from the mirror. Michelin is indeed a French tire company harkening back to 1889.

The original '50s version of the DS had a single headlight on each side that was exposed at the top but sitting in a concave housing at the bottom. This combined with a slightly flatter hood made the car look very much like a frog. If you haven't seen the French hit man movie classic Le Samourai I highly recommend it! The DS is featured prominently throughout this awesome flick.

Though the DS was produced until 1975 this was the last year imported to the States. It was followed by the Citroen CX which looks much like the modernized version of a DS that it is. While the follow-up CX was a massive success none were officially imported to the U.S. due to an idiotic ruling on the Hydropneumatic suspension. It's a shame too, as that suspension was so wonderfully built that Rolls Royce licensed it for use in their own Silver Shadow. Regardless, this is one of my greatest discoveries yet on the streets of NYC and I'm happy to have stumbled across it.