Citroen XM Forum

Driving through Velez-Malaga this morning, followed for several km a Pug 605. This is only the second one seen in the last 14 years here. Grey, and obviously looked after, but without any rear badging to identify its fairly obviously diesel engine. Didn't hang about, either, but the slightly bobbing ride said it wasn't an XM. Unfortunately I was driving our Toyota, so any eye contact would have been a bit pointless...

Nice spot Chris.
Coincidentally I was talking to someone about this the other day, I too have only ever seen 2 605s in the wild since owning XMs (some 16, almost 17 years now). One of them was a taxi!

They seem even rarer than the XM itself.

Ciarán

The take-up of the 605 seemed miniscule. I remember when a clutch of managers at Agfa UK got their company S1 2.1 XMs, one guy went for a 605 - an SVdt iirc. The XMs were stylish and comfortable enough, although electrically temperamental (as we know), and got a reputation for the rear bobbing up and down randomly at traffic lights. A couple of them sustained nose cone damage in London traffic, and some rear-end bumps (spectacularly good brakes). In the case of my own manager, a combination of a newly-acquired mobile phone, an invisble front end, and central London traffic very nearly wrote his silver XM off within a week of his getting it. Tw*t. It (amongst other things) was more than he could handle, and he got shot of it.

No-one could work out why the Brum guy went for the gunmetal 605: always seemed to be a slightly enlarged 405, and alongside the XMs it really was rather dull. Years later, he would repeat this bit of dullness by choosing a Merc 190: I remember its almost 'wooden' seats and spartan interior. Taxi stuff indeed, Ciaran.

Some years later too, long after the company XMs had disappeared, I got our white S2 2.5 and turned up at a regional overnight sales meeting in Norfolk in it - complete with an AGFA FILM sticker in the back window. I was one of the first to arrive at the Thetford Forest inn, and as the others trooped in, there was one topic of conversation . . . who from HQ was coming to our meeting, having parked an obviously sumptuous company car outside? My regional manager was particularly unnerved, thinking that he might have to perform a bit more than anticipated. I didn't say a thing, but eventually it was sussed, but only by someone going out into the carpark during a pee-break, and accounting for the fifteen or so team cars out there. The respect I got my manager took a turn for the better from that day onwards. Believe me, just then it needed to.

Nothing, it seems, animates salesmen quite like a company car!