Takeovers and Elegance (1965-1975)Takeovers and Elegance (1965-1975)
Yet in a way a gesture like this was typical of Citroën - the old,
capricious one-man firm rather than its carefully-commercial Michelin-run
successor. Producing a car as exotic and as audacious as the lovely SM was
an act of faith against the gathering economic shades closing in on the
company, but it wasn't going to solve any of the problems. Sales went on
falling, and foreign competition went on increasing. Michelin grew restive
at the hardening conditions, but de Gaulle balked at increasing foreign
participation in the French car industry, so that Fiat's overtures to take
over Citroën as a link in the chain leading to chairman Agnelli's dreamof
a pan-European motor group were given the official cold shoulder. Instead
of buying all, or even most of Michelin's controlling fifty-two percent
of Citroën shares, all it was able to buy was a mere fifteen percent.
But at long last Michelin, and Citroën, had seen the writing on thewall.
Far too late - in the fall of 1968 - the company got down to the serious
and urgent business of producing the much-needed new model.
In the end, de Gaulle fell, and Fiat was able to increase its stake in
the company before the new car - the Citroën GS - even appeared. But
Michelin still had control: Fiat and Michelin owned forty-nine and fifty-one
percent respectively of the new holding company formed to take over Michelin's
stock in Citroën.
So in a sense, the Citroën GS bridges the gap between the second and
third generations of Citroën in the same way as the TA did between
the first and second generations. Yet in many ways it's a more exciting
car, and may well be an even more successful one. Like all Citroëns
from the TA onwards, it was designed with the future very much in mind.
Like the TA, it has an engine mounted at the front and driving the front
wheels. Like the DS, it has a highly individual but extremely efficient
streamlined body. Like the SM, it has a completely new engine and the major
mechanical components mounted ahead of the front axle. And like the 2 CV
and Dyane, it is a superbly practical vehicle with no pretensions to status.
Yet even more than any other Citroën before it, it has been designed
to be produced en masse as efficiently and cheaply as possible.
For reasons of economy - to buy, to maintain, to run - the engine is
small, now at 1220 cc. It's a neat, compact, air-cooled flat four with an
overhead camshaft for each cylinder bank and a short stroke (a mere 59 mm),
letting it spin right up to 8000 rpm without disaster. The power is distributed
so that the car responds most quickly between 4500 rpm and 6750 rpm, but
within these limits, it delivers enough punch to give the car a surprisingly
good performance for such a small unit - top speed is a shade over 90 mph,
and it reaches 50 mph in 11.5 seconds from a standing start. In this, it
is helped by the lightness of the body, which forms an unusual combination
of chassis and monocoque configuration - it uses a raft-type door frame
carrying side sections made up of rails and panels which act as very tough
bracing members. These carry tubular frames running up through the screen
and door pillars and across the roof section of the car, producing a complete
box frame which carries the light and relatively unstressed body panels
proper.
The suspension too is typically Citroën: the same hydropneumatic combination
used on the back wheels of the last of the TA's, and all round on the DS,
ID, and SM. But in all the twenty-year life of this system, the engineers
have grown much cleverer with their geometry. No more the heart-stopping
initial roll common on early DS's, which tended to prevent all but the brave,
the experienced or the insensitive from finding out just how good the cornering
power really was. It's still a very soft suspension-lean on a corner of
the GS and the car gives under you like an old leather armchair. But plunge
into a corner 20 mph too fast, stand on the disc brakes, swing into the
bend and pour on the power as the road straightens out, and the car stays
level throughout.
But the real truth about the GS is what has been true of most of its immediate
predecessors: the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. Looked
at analytically, the design has a lot of interesting and worthwhile features,
plus a few which are different for their own sake, like the baleful Cyclop's-eye
speedometer which illuminates the appropriate speed figure and ideal brake
distance measurement, and which takes quite a lot of getting used to. But
the greatness of the car is the way in which all these characteristics blend
together to produce a vehicle with a rare and truly individual personality.
More than all its predecessors, the GS is the synthesis of all the Citroën
virtues - individual rather than exotic, functional rather than imposing,
good value for money rather than expensive, it's a striking achievement.
It holds five passengers and a lot of luggage in comfort, it goes quickly
enough for most conditions, and it corners well to keep averages high. It
remains quiet and well-mannered even when thrashed hard, and in spite of
its sophisticated hydraulics, it has been designed to outdo its predecessors
in reliability and length of time between overhauls. Forty years after the
death of André Citroën, it brings his entire design and marketing
philosophy to its most logical and triumphant conclusion.
But recent years have also brought less happy circumstances for the company
he founded. Not so triumphant has been Citroën's rotary engine venture,
at least not so far. In the mid-Sixties, Citroën and NSU jointly organized
Comotor SA for the purpose of producing Wankel engines both for their own
individual and other manufacturers' use. A new plant in Altforweiler, Germany
followed, as did the M035 Citroën rotary-engined car of which 500 examples
were sold beginning in January 1970 in what was called the biggest pre-mass
production test ever carried out in Europe. Three years later the GS Birotor
was introduced, with production commencing in 1974. It had been taken for
granted that the eventual successor to the DS would be rotary engined. That
does not seem so likely at this writing. The world's third rotary engined
production car has not been greeted with the expected enthusiasm, and theWankel
engine remains limited to only the GS-derived Birotor model - of which only
three to five units are being made per day. As if to muddy the picture further.
NSU has been swallowed up by Volkswagen, which put the brakes on the NSU-Citroën
collaboration and left Citroën with an expensive new factory for the
production of engines for which there is currently no overwhelming demand.
Yet another Citroën divorce had preceded. In June 1973 it was announced
that Fiat was leaving, selling its forty-nine percent interest in Pardevi,
the holding company which controls Citroën, back to Michelin. The Agnelli
forces had been pledged to rationalization between different models and
different factories in their empire, and one of the first fruits of the
Fiat-Citroën partnership had been an intention to set up a joint buying
policy, with new factories producing common components for both Citroën
and Fiat. Other ideas apparently followed, all aimed at a closer integration
of the two companies. Citroën apparently resisted, personalities clashed
- and soon it was all over. The parting was amicable.
But the problem remained, and the energy crisis and worldwide inflation
didn't help. Citroën was bereft of cash. Rumors of other partnerships,
of further collaborations abounded. Michelin, pouring forth monumental sums
into its own overseas expansion, was obviously looking around again for
help with Citroën. And it was found. Finally last summer an announcement
was made. The partner this time was Peugeot. A new company was being formed
to work out merger details and thereafter to guide the fortunes of the two
companies. Although both Peugeot and Citroën will be represented on
its board, the leadership of this association will eventually fall to Peugeot.
(The latter obviously held the trump card during merger negotiations.) Both
companies should profit - in every sense of the word - from the partnership.
Peugeot will reap the benefits of Citroën's advanced engineering; Citroën,
the marketing rationale of Peugeot. Both will retain their individuality.
Time will tell.
It had to happen, one supposes. One day the traditional Citroën attitude-
at times laudable, at times plain infuriating - had to succumb to some extent
to the cold-hearted arguments of the accountants. There was no other way
in the complex labyrinth of the contemporary industry. But perhaps there
isn't cause for undue dismay. Somehow a Citroën in terms of orthodoxy
is a vision not easily conjured. And Citroën's latest - the CX 2000/2200
- is, like its predecessors, a reminder of the kind of fresh thinking car
designers can still come up with when they're allowed to. One can scarcely
imagine a Citroën as being anything else. If it were, it just wouldn't
be a Citroën.
