Telegraph Feature on XM

[marc61]

Yes the SM is special. That's what a company with a strong engineering design ethos risks doing and Citroen used to do just that. They started the SM design process in 1961, proved the Diravi worked in 1962 (rejected the initial plan for it to be one turn lock to lock and relaxed it to 2 turns when everyone else was twirling the wheel through 3-4 turns), bought Maserati in 1968 to get a decent engine developed and launched it in 1970 - and then launched the GS in the same year too!

This is engineering design ambition. Citroen himself set the tone by insiting that the Traction was launched as a FWD with monocoque body despite all odds in 1934. They were still pushing the boundary 40 years later with the SM, GS and CX but then it got watered down. The innovation appeared only occasionally from the 1980s onwards (things like leading the way with diesel power trains, hydractive suspension, activa suspension etc). But in most other respects they went mainstream because Peugeot wanted that, and the name/brand identity got blurred. Recently they've even sacrificed hydropneumatics. Throw out the engineering design distinctions because some bean counter says we can do it a lot cheaper with springs!

And now here we are hanging on to and enjoying older Citroens because the company had a brilliant ethos once. And now look where the company is: loss-making and hoping to get back to break even by end of 2014! That's what listening to accountants and mainstream car buyers gets you!

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indus ... ry-closure

[Rommel]

I fully agree with the points you made Marc.
Gentlemen, the brutish and coarse designs we see everywhere now are merely a reflection of our age. Sophistication, subtlety, elegance; these are values once aspired to and now tolerated at best, mocked at worst.

As The Jam once sang: "And the public gets what the public wants..."
Robert is right.

This is a world where pop music now often consists of one phrase repeated ad nauseum, where girls aspire to be the morons from TOWIE (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about). Watched any documentaries recently? Dumb is IN.

[robert_e_smart]

Indeed, Citroen have always been crap at making money! How many times has it been bailed out.

[Charles M]

About as many times as Aston Martin I would think...

[robert_e_smart]

The thing is people always resist change a bit. The same discussions we are having now about cars will have been had when the DS was replaced by the CX, the CX by the XM, and so it continues.

Having driven modern stuff for the best part of a year now, and having moderns in the household for the last 7 years, I find them really good. They are much easier to work on than the XMs and Xantias, they are young enough to not give the kind of trouble and annoying faults we encounter with the XM.

As for all of the other regular kind of progress like ESP, and ABS, I wouldn't be keen on having a car that doesn't have ESP now. It is a great piece of safety kit, and has stopped me from getting into trouble on different occasions. Some of the other stuff like Start Stop technology, I hate, and it irritates me. Don't get me started on the dreadful EGS robotised "automatic" gearbox that PSA are using, dreadful. The VAG DSG Twin Clutch setup is a dream in comparison.

[Dieselman]

Very valid points about Citroen needing to make cars that sell, irrespective of lack of engineering excellence, but it's worth remembering the DS3 is both great looking and the best selling car in it's class.
The market has changed recently Citroen should now position themselves back in the marketplace for making good looking, chick, trendy, innovative cars. The DS3 and MINI ranges are a good example of how more stylised cars sell well and make profit.

If they made the metropolis and it was actually a good car, I'd be in one.

[spitroen]

Also citroen major wins and success's in world rally championship. Following in The success of Ford with the Focus. Sets them up to produce and sell more main stream cars.

[casalingua]

The most interesting cars were from a period of national markets (not international ones) and where the personal idiosyncracies of the staff had a greater influence on the outcomes. Modernity can be characterised as the victory of quantitative values over qualitative ones. As you go back in time, you can see how cars are more charming than they are now but less quantitatively excellent. There´s no doubt that a 1.4 litre Golf or Astra would trounce my XM in most measurable ways but neither are as lovely. And the CX is a yet more lovely car than an XM but the XM is "better" measurably. The question is, can cars be made charming again while achieving the measurable standards expected?

[Eddie nuff]

Only if the bean counters say so.