It was the C-Crosser that was the low point for me. You probably won’t remember it, as it was short-lived here in the UK; a cynical re-nose of the Mitsubishi Outlander that resulted in a gawky, generic SUV, hastily conceived because Citroen’s poor product planning had left it ill-equipped to meet the rise in popularity of such things in the mid-2000s. And for me, it was Citroen’s lowest ebb.
Other enthusiasts of old Citroens – of which, for my sins, I count myself as one – might choose instead the 1990s, when Citroens started to become ‘Peugeot-ified’. Yet more may even say the tide turned earlier still. But for me it was the mid-2000s, a time when Citroen became a pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap operation punting out half-hearted, generic cars.
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How on earth did it get there? Once upon a time, Citroen was a byword for continental glamour and engineering radicalism; a company that made cars that achieved noble aims through engineering excellence, styled with such flair that they looked at home as much in the most fashionable Parisian streets as gliding along the Côte d'Azur.
Watch: Our amazing road trip to the Citroen Conservatoire in Paris, a treasure trove of Citroen history
Citroen's Greatest Hits: The Traction Avant
It was really the Traction Avant series of big saloons that set that trend. Introduced just before the Second World War, these big, glamorous cars were beloved of high-flyers who adored the comfort offered by their advanced monocoque chassis, and the safety and grip of their front-wheel-drive powertrains. They also bankrupted Citroen; high production costs and considerable debts meant the company went bust in 1934. That was far from the end of the story, though, as the company was bought out by tyre manufacturer Michelin, which was eventually to provide the financing for some of its most remarkable cars.
After the war, of course, production resumed, but Citroen saw that the plush, luxurious Traction Avant was not the car to get the country back on its feet again. And so the TPV – Tres Petit Voiture – was born. Envisioned as ‘four wheels beneath an umbrella’, it was designed with one objective in mind above all others: simplicity.
Keeping it simple meant it would be cheap to make, cheap to run, and easy for anyone with a spanner to maintain. And with pliant suspension and robust construction, it would be ideal for France’s roads, never the greatest and now badly deteriorated after years of war and penury.
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Citroen's Greatest Hits: The 2CV
Of course, the TPV became the 2CV, and it was the car that brought Citroen global fame. Powered by an air-cooled, two-cylinder engine and, famously, endowed with seats that could be removed for use as a roadside picnic set, it managed to be both affordable and charming. And Citroen couldn’t make enough of them.
Meanwhile, Citroen realised that it badly needed a successor to the now-ancient Traction Avant. That successor took the company from one extreme to the other, from a classic sit-up-and-beg three-box saloon to a car so futuristic it looked as though it had just arrived from the outer echelons of the Andromeda galaxy.
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Citroen's Greatest Hits: The DS
But the DS wasn’t just amazing to look at; its extraordinary oleo-pneumatic suspension, which used a combination of gas and air in order to obtain near-perfect ride quality, was groundbreaking. So much so that it ended up being licenced by Rolls-Royce and Mercedes for use in their cars, as they simply couldn’t better it.
Citroen's Greatest Hits: The SM
Citroen was riding high – pun not intended – but it was a company of two extremes; the lavish DS (and, based upon it, the beautiful Maserati-powered SM coupe) at one end, and the everyman 2CV at the other. What it needed was to fill the gap in the middle, and it worked to do so, first with the Dyane and Ami, based on stretched 2CV platforms with larger engines, and then eventually with the GS.
Citroen's Greatest Hits: The GS
Today it’s one of Citroen’s less well-remembered cars, but in its time it came in for high praise among reviewers, and even won the European Car Of The Year award in 1971. What made it so special was that it took the DS’s clever suspension, and packaged it into a smaller, more affordable package. It was clothed in a wind-cheating body, too, and that meant despite its rather diminutive 1.0-litre engine, it still packed enough of a punch to keep up with traffic. Just.
But Citroen flew too close to the sun once again. The GS had originally been intended to use a rotary engine, and Citroen even released a few hundred cars to the public as the Birotor, but it turned out to be unreliable in practice, and the company didn’t want to be liable for after-sales support, so it took the extraordinary – and expensive – step of buying back as many of the cars it had sold as it could, and crushing them.
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Combined with the expensive development process that had by then gone into the replacement for the DS – the CX – this meant that Citroen found itself once again on the ropes financially, and in 1974 a deal was brokered by the French government for its chief competitor (and fellow French manufacturer) Peugeot to take the company over.
This, for some fans, is where the rot started. Peugeot immediately started to make economies, nixing some of Citroen’s more outlandish ideas, and instigating a programme of platform-sharing for future product development that would allow economies of scale neither of the two companies had hitherto been able to enjoy.
Citroen's Greatest Hits: The BX
The first result of this marriage was the GS’s replacement, the BX, which stepped up a size in order to enable it to better take on cars like the Ford Sierra as well as the Ford Escort, which had been the GS’s chief mainstream rival. The BX took Citroen’s trademark suspension and quirky styling, and packaged it into an easier to maintain form, with light composite body panels to improve fuel economy. It was an instant hit, especially in turbo diesel form, in which it managed to be both fast and frugal.
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Then came the AX, the XM, the ZX and the Xantia; with each, Citroen moved just a little further into the mainstream. All shared platforms with their Peugeot equivalents; all became more and more conventional.
But while enthusiasts lamented, buyers rejoiced. For while these 1990s models might have felt disappointingly conventional to the cognoscenti, for buyers they were reassuringly familiar, lacking the weirdness and wackiness that had been a barrier for many potential owners before.
Yet they still had just enough flair and character to set them apart from the more boring mainstream, and were high on comfort, handling and build quality. Consequently, they were big sellers, and set the company on a more even keel than ever it had been before. Indeed, they may be less beloved of Citroen nerds, but there’s no doubting they helped save the company.
Of course, it helped that the platforms they were based upon were good ones. Peugeot was on form during the 1990s. A decade later, though, it had gone a bit awry; the 207, 307 and 407 were all instantly forgettable, so it was no surprise that the Citroens of that era, which were based upon these cars, weren’t tremendous either.
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Citroen had by this time been positioned as a cut-price alternative to Peugeot, with comfort and quality now taking second place to value, and dealers offering promotion after promotion to shift mediocre cars for low prices. Then, of course, came the C-Crosser, the car that showed Citroen really had lost its way.
Thankfully, that was not the end of the story. Under the careful guidance of CEO Linda Jackson, Citroen started to get its mojo back. Where before Citroen had ignored its heritage – was afraid of it, almost, frightened that quirkiness would put customers off – Jackson urged her designers to explore it, reference it, and draw upon it. The result was a regaining of confidence, in design terms at least, and the boldness to explore new ways of doing things.
Comfort has once again been put back at the top of the agenda, design flair is no longer stifled, and personality is encouraged. It’s true that the cars remain fairly conventional under the skin; Citroen’s unique and groundbreaking approach to engineering is rather less prevalent than it once was, and these cars still share much in common with their Peugeot, and now Vauxhall, platform-mates.
But at least these days the company makes cars with character and charm, which truly do feel different to drive than the cars with which they share their technology. Today’s big Citroens – the C5 Aircross and C5 X – are still exceptionally smooth and quiet by the standards of their respective classes, while at the other end of the scale, the dinky electric Ami attempts to take a truly left-field approach to urban mobility, even if it isn’t quite as well-resolved as it could be.
No, Citroen isn’t about to return to its daring, exciting ways of old, producing the sorts of cars that won fans like me over in the first place. But that it still exists – and is once again selling likeable, head-turning cars with comfort at their core – is something to be thankful for.