theshiftpattern   Because manuals and wagons.

I love old Citroens. They are a close second to old Saabs as being my all-time favorite cars and for many of the same reasons. Like Saabs of the era, Citroens were cars that had their own unique style and were just plain weird. They had front-wheel-drive (a rarity back then) and aerodynamic bodies. It was as if they were designed by people not familiar with conventional cars. Actually, this was the case with Saab as their first prototype, the Ursaab, was designed by aircraft engineers, most of whom didn’t even have a driver’s license.

I would love play with Citroens but they are too damn expensive and complicated for an amateur like myself. So I’ll stick to old Saabs for now. In the fantasy world where I owned one, I’d probably be wealthy enough to pay these guys to work on it since they are located within an hour’s drive of me.

The two Citroen models that I lust after the most are the DS/ID series of sedans and the SM coupes. The latter was a grand tourer with a big Maserati V6 engine. They were the most technically complex car of their time. I’ve had the pleasure of driving a well-sorted one that an acquaintance owned. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, the driving experience was somewhere between a muscle car and a spaceship.

So today I received a half-joking message from my pal Matt via Facebook:

“here is your chance: http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/3463256466.html”

I will at least give the seller credit for not using all-caps which is the norm with these kinds of ads. He also managed to speller “Weber” and “hydraulic” correctly:

1973 citroen sm – $2000 (edwardsville il)

“rare 1973 citroen sm only 38000 miles when last parked will need restored mazzaratti v6 weber tri carbs factory adjustable hydraulic suspension. the person i bought it from said it ran when he parked it.the car has orig hub caps rims and tires call ___ ___ ____ ask 4 bryan”

Like any other semi-exotic Euro car of the era, there is no such thing as a cheap Citroen SM. You’re going to pay a lot no matter what. I’ve seen ones for $6000 that I wouldn’t buy with someone else’s money. One needing a lot of work, or a complete restoration, such as this one will cost tens of thousands of dollars and lots of time to make it right. A good, well-sorted example is the way to go, and even then one of those will easily run $15-20k.

So I guess if you paid $2000 for this one you could at least say you own an SM. You could also sit behind the wheel and make vroom-vroom noises.

I’ll keep dreaming.