Citroen GS

Being weird is one thing. Being strange is another. And being different is yet another. Citroen cars of the 1950-1990s were generally all three of these things. Often the technological hallmarks and stylistic gems unique to this out-there French car maker, were overlooked by a world that simply wasn't ready for them. Indeed, the unique market situation that Citroen faced in the aforementioned time period, was conservative and upright- no place then for cars with sci-fi dashboards and suspension that allowed the car to drive without one of its back wheels if necessary.

Citroen made most of its money at home- in France. A place where most of the wacky Citroen features were lauded and praised. Of course, selling a car at home is not always profitable and Citroen was keen to export their products overseas. Where they were not made welcome at all. The UK car market was full of rustic wretched rustbuckets, and a fresh new continental car seemed like a way forward. Wrong. Citroens proved to be just as unreliable as all the other British Leyland tripe coming out of the Midlands of England.

What about the US, another hugely promising market. At the time of the GS, oil was hugely expensive, and a small 1.2 litre engine would surely drink way less juice than the 7 litre land yachts it would be on sale with. Well, the GS would have been hugely successful and indeed economical, if it had been able to get into the country in the first place. In the 1970s, a man called Ralph Nader suddenly made cars his worst enemy, and introduced hundreds of new safety regulations in an attempt to curb the huge road toll in the US at the time. Sadly the Citroen GS met none of these regulations. Ironically, the GS was actually safer in a crash than pretty much all of its US rivals.

Being weird is one thing. Funding this weirdness is another. Citroen was a small French company, with a limited customer base: namely French farmers and French heads of state. The farmers liked the clever suspension and frugal nature of the cars; the heads of state liked the more prestigious models for their incredibly stylish lines and the fact that they were driving around in something from home. Yet despite the rather varied popularity, Citroen was beginning to make losses. Their only way forward was to make a small, predictably popular family car. Hopefully it would sell well, and give Citroen the cash injection it so desperately needed. It did.

Name another car that can do this

The GS was an enormous success. But only hindsight. Despite selling nigh on 2 million GS models, and winning the 1971 European Car of the Year award, Citroen had declared bankruptcy in 1974. So what on Earth went wrong? Here we have a car that was way ahead of its time in nearly all aspects. It was one of the most aerodynamic cars in the world. It was one of the safest cars in the world. It was one of the best handling family cars of the time. It was a car that could be driven around with one of its back wheels missing, thanks to the groundbreaking hydropneumatic suspension. It wasn't just different, it was revolutionary.

A dashboard so modern we're still not ready for it

Sadly, these innovations were costly and hard to maintain. Citroen spent millions developing their innovative features and even more funding warranty claims when things went wrong. They had also spent millions developing the GS to originally have a rotary engine, which ended up selling very poorly. They had also splashed out on a brand new factory for the upcoming luxury Citroen CX: another weirdo which again cost Citroen millions to develop. The GS was also strangled by the car legislation in France at the time. Big engines meant big taxes on your car, and in order to boost sales, small engines were fitted to the GS, to ensure that owners weren't stung with a harsh bill from 'le tax Monsieur' These engines may have saved fuel, but didn't move the GS very fast. The fuel saving small capacity was mainly defeated by the fact that you had to rev the GS to near breaking point in order to go anywhere, meaning fuel bills were uncannily high.

In my mind, the GS was a sad story. Citroen went to all that effort to be different, and it should have been hugely profitable. But despite the high sales and the innovative features that no other cars had at the time, it left Citroen broken and begging for a bail-out.
 
It is interesting to note that now the car has a semi-cult status, with devoted owners all over the world. Perhaps Citroen was just ahead of its time. Again.