70s style

When you think of those flared trousers, hairy sideburns, wide ties and dodgy wallpapers, the 1970s do not have the best reputation when it comes to fashion and style. Yet, when you look at these two sleek cars pictured below, this decade wasn't all bad taste. (Some might wonder whether the architecture of the 70s-designed Pompidou Centre in Paris, outside which these cars are parked, is the ultimate in 70s good taste or bad taste, but we have enough bland buildings in this world, and the Pompidou Centre certainly isn't guilty of being bland.) Nor are these cars.

The blue Citroen CX and the gold Citroen SM are still as beautiful as ever. If I could have my
pick of any of the long line of Citroens, delivered to me today as a brand-new vehicle for me
to own and live with day-to-day, I would love to be the owner of a CX. This Prestige model
would do me. I am sure the man on the bicycle in my little diorama agrees. By the way,
the CX model is 1:43 by Minichamps, and the SM is made by IXO.

If the factory was fresh out of brand new CXs but there was a gold SM going begging, I'd
have it! For this diorama of an SM at speed out on the highway, I thought I'd reverse my
inadvertent sexist bias and put a woman behind the wheel of a fast car. She's in a hurry!

Why would I have a CX instead of an SM? Am I mad? Well, I know I'd lose my licence quickly in an SM, and I do think a gold SM would be a cop-magnet, too. But I also feel that the SM is a bit of a one-off Citroen 'special', and so I prefer the CX as the ultimate development of the line of Citroens which started back in 1955 with the original DS. All along the way, through the 50s, 60s and into the 70s with the CX, Citroen had managed to make some very swift and comfortable open-road cars using surprisingly detuned, smallish 2.0 to 2.3 litre four-cylinder engines. It's one of the forgotten features of the great Citroens, Peugeots and Renaults of this era is that they won rallies and went fast on highways without relying on big, powerful engines to haul them along, as so many other marques from other countries did.

With the SM they slotted a powerful Maserati V6 into the place normally taken up by a smallish four, and no wonder the thing went so quickly. And no wonder the SM appeals even to people who normally don't get too excited about French cars. The SM had a bigger, sexier, more powerful engine than anything else slotted into a mainstream French car before then. I am sure it would be a thrill to drive.


But the old French car fan in me says the humble 2.3 litre four in the CX is actually something to be proud of, as much a part of the Citroen tradition as the hydro-pneumatic suspension and the comfy lounge-chair seats. I am sure a long drive in a new CX would be  comfortable and fast, both a thrill and a pleasure.

Just add V6 and stir

Motoring history loves its glorious failures, but for many Citroen fans the idea that their stunning, purring, sleek, growling Citroen SM is a member of the Glorious Failures Hall of Fame is a travesty. "What failure?" they ask. Well, failure to sell is one thing that propels any technically fascinating car straight into the infamous Hall of Fame, but whatever your opinion of the Citroen SM, few would disagree that it's a beautiful thing.

Wow. Love that body shape. Fortunately for me when I was developing an
interest in all automotive things French, there was an SM in the same suburb
as me, and so every now and then I'd get to see it purring along.
This is an IXO 1:43 model of it, and it'll do me.

Apart from the glorious body shape, the other main thing that everyone wants to talk about when they discuss the SM is its Maserati V6 engine. So, I went trawling through You Tube to find a video that gives a good sense of how the engine sounds, and how the car goes when you push it hard. So I found this nice video of a chap in an SM doing two laps of the Goodwood circuit in the UK. The owner says (in the comments section) that it has a standard air filter and silencer – so the SM sounds great then! And watch for his little diversion into the grass at the end of the first lap, when he fails to negotiate the chicane slowly enough. Rotten things, chicanes. My sympathies go to him, but no harm was done.

What the hell, let's have another SM video, a completely different one. This is the Rallye du Maroc, with lots of other French cars looking good on the dusty roads of Morocco. Don't worry if you can't understand the German language commentary, it doesn't matter. The second half of the video has some great footage of a Citroen SM negotiating rocky washouts, sand dunes and worse. Not a bad old rally car, either, the SM.

 

I thought I'd try to upgrade my diecast model photography with some tarmac below the cars (actually grey paper) and some cloudy blue skies behind (one of my wife's holiday snaps from the tropics). And for my first attempt I thought the beautiful Citroen SM would be the perfect subject.

First try. Lighting is a bit crude, but it's not bad for halogen desk lamps.

This IXO model is quite a nice one. It's actually doubly nice for me, because
this is the colour of Citroen SM I used to see on the streets back in the 70s.
A bronze SM is what I had my heart set on when I went model hunting for one.

Finally, I should finish off this little posting on the SM to say that apart from slow sales, there's no way this car could be considered a failure. It was a magnificent success of a car to drive, judging by the opinions of those who drove it at the time. And it did something that only the great cars manage to do – it inspired people.