Hip to be square – 70 years of the Citroën H Van (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Hip to be square – 70 years of the Citroën H Van (2017)

adrianflux.co.uk

119 pointsmelenaboija64 comments

When I was a kid I've been taken in one of those - by the police. All painted black with some white stripes. I wasnt alone in the truck, they use to arrest people by the half-a-dozen back in the day (drunks, wanderers, brawlers, etc). They'd also release everybody after a while at a street corner with a big kick in the but.

LOL over here in Germany we got drunk-tanked in VW vans and Mercedes sprinters

I’ve seen one of these my entire life - parked around a residential neighborhood in Seattle. It’s certainly different and exciting.

Citroens are very rare to see in the states but always fun to spot. They’re usually vintage models. One funny part of traveling in Europe is seeing modern Citroen models.

Comedians in Cars getting Coffee had an episode with a Citroen.

I've seen a lot of Citroen in the EU, particularly in the UK & Ireland.

Never seen any in the US (where I live), which makes sense -- https://www.citroen.co.uk/about-citroen/citroen-in-a-few-fig...

It is perhaps noteworthy in this context that a lot of the new world and old world car companies such as Citroën are now part of Netherland based Stellantis.[1] So in a way a Jeep is now a Dutch car.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellantis#Brands

Dutch because of the tax regime. Other famous ‘Dutch’ companies:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_IKEA_Holding: “Inter IKEA Holding B.V. (also known as Inter IKEA Group) is a holding company registered in the Netherlands”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus: “Airbus' headquarters are registered in Leiden, Netherlands, but daily management is conducted from the company's main office, located in Blagnac, near Toulouse, France.”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton_Teas_and_Infusions: “Lipton Teas and Infusions is an American-British private company based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that produces tea and other herbal drinks.”

Eh, Jeep was an Italian car (FCA, the result of Fiat buying Chrysler's remains) and is now a Franco-Italian car (FCA and PSA(Citroen , Peugeot, Opel) merged to form Stellantis, registered in the Netherlands, like Airbus, for the taxes and neutrality) manufactured in the US for the American market.

What neutrality? NL is a EU and NATO member. You're probably thinking of Switzerland.

It's taxes all the way.

Neutrality as in there's no bias to any of the countries of the originally merged companies.

If Stellantis were incorporated in France, apart from the higher taxes, there'd be an obvious bias towards the former PSA in France over Fiat in Italy.

>Neutrality as in there's no bias to any of the countries of the originally merged companies.

Who cares about that anyway? Multinational corporations have no national allegiance anyway. They only care about profit and shareholder returns. They set up offices wherever the get the best deals, as in lowest taxes and cheapest labor.

Austria would have also been a "neutral" country in this case. Why didn't they HQ there and instead chose the NL? Let me see .. checks note .. yeah it's just the much lower corporate taxes and nothing else.

> Who cares about that anyway? Multinational corporations have no national allegiance anyway

You obviously haven't considered the fact that both Italy and France are highly protective of their industries. Italy's PM was recently publicly complaining about Stellantis not putting enough of their manufacturing in Italy.

I know. I used to work for them. They already have offices in Italy and in France. But ask yourself why didn't they HQ there and instead in NL that has no automotive industry?

I'm sure the lowest corporate taxes in the EU have nothing to do with that.

Putting the HQ in the Netherlands was more like a compromise between the French and the Italians. It’s really not a Dutch company in any real way

That's the van that the monster from Jeepers Creepers drove, right?

I thought the same thing, but apparently its a 1941 Chevy COE, equipped with a cow catcher on the front:

https://jeeperscreepers.fandom.com/wiki/The_Creeper_truck

The other day I stumbled onto this IMDB for cars site. It also says it’s a 1941 Chevy COE:

https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_5326-Chevrolet-Heavy-Duty-COE-...

imcdb.org is excellent, as is imfdb.org (internet movie firearms database)

The H van is in this horror movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338095/

>I’ve seen one of these my entire life

In Europe these retro Citroen vans are used as mobile hipster food and coffee shops.

I also saw one retro American School bus here (very rare in Europe) selling overpriced American street food, mainly hotdogs and burgers. The retro van plus the server having a top-knot man-bun add an automatic 20% value to your burger.

Either way, it seems these old busses have found a second life in the posh mobile catering industry.

> In Europe these retro Citroen vans are used as mobile hipster food and coffee shops.

There's one like this in the lobby of the Hubert Grand Place hotel in Brussels. It's not immediately obvious how they got it in there.

The glass and door walls at the entry of many hotels are collapsible/removable with a bit of elbow grease to get oversized stuff in.

Great episode!

There used to lots of specialty vehicle manufacturers till maybe the early ‘60s. Milk delivery, parts delivery, etc. Now they all pretty much have the same form regardless of role.

Citroen still make interesting designs now and then. The current Ami, the C6, the C3 Pluriel.

Over the years Citroen have designed some of the most beautiful vehicles ever - the DS being the most obvious, but for me the SM is the pinnacle of car design, just stunning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_SM

Yes the SM is awesome, but to be fair, it is more of a Maserati than a Citroen.

Just the engine. All the rest of the mechanics are Citroen (a lot brought over from the DS) and the styling was in-house led by Robert Opron.

I always thought the XM was very pretty.

Loved that hiss.

> Over the years Citroen have designed some of the most beautiful vehicles ever

Like the Romans say, de gustibus non disputandum est.

When it comes to automobiles, sometimes it's hard to tell if the French are joking or if they're serious.

My uncle had a CX and as I kid it was like getting into a spaceship, loved the steering wheel.

A different uncle recently got a second hand C6 and despite all its reliability issues it’s a pretty cool car.

I learned to drive in a CX Break, a 5m beast of a car. Two and a half turns of the wheel from left to right, self-centering. Brake pedal went from zero to fully engaged in one cm. And the suspension was the absolute best. Never again drove anything like it.

Agree, my first ever car was a Citroën Visa from my grandpa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Visa) and even back then the design felt special to me.

I think these and the C15 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C15) will become desirable at some point in the future.

> Citroën Visa

Reminds me Oltcit.

> but for me the SM is the pinnacle of car design

I raise your french with some italian, german and american designs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_3500_GT#/media/File:P...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_250_GT_Lusso#/media/Fi...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_288_GTO#/media/Fichier...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_GT40#/media/File:1965_For...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Cobra#/media/Fichier:Shelby...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang#/media/File:Ford_...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_356#/media/Fichier:Por...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911#/media/Fichier:196...

I find that Citroen SM just horrible. You see it and think it cannot get worse but then you see its back...

But as the saying goes: to each his own bad tastes.

Meh. Porsche is the worst "interesting design" offender imo, with just marginal iterative improvements over time with nothing truly ambitious. Porsche has never had to really rethink their designs because they do evolution, not revolution. One can argue that that's how you design something great (the GT3 RS is quite a car...) but I still find it kind of boring. And in the world of toy cars, boring is the worst adjective. The porschephiles may downvote all they like :)

The hydropneumatic suspension was a bold move, and is still an engineering marvel. The CX has a better ride than a lot of current cars. Meanwhile the 2024 mustang Mach E was so inept at controlling its weight that my wife got nauseous riding in it. Maybe we don't pay attention to ideas that came before us at the wrong time.

I think really wild engineering decisions are underrated. As an enthusiast, it's a shame that the car industry seems to have gotten more averse to crazy design decisions over time.

All these are much more conventional, though. They scream luxury or expensive sport car, but none of them has the character of the SM or its space age aesthetics. I don’t really like it, but I have to admit that it has something special.

From that period I would vote for Jaguar E-type https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/768x768/pu...

I had a Series 2. The car club told me the first thing I should do is put a mechanic on a retainer. I thought they were joking. They weren't...

https://images.cadar.io/4ed13238-dd1a-4fee-9ddc-e2f2885ff1ef...

They were in the doldrums for 20 years but seen to be fighting back to their old design-driven ethos. The new Ami is a cute design that perhaps only Honda would have attempted:

https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami

Wow, I had no idea Citroën was a going concern.

I've only ever seen (or at least noticed) vintage DS models on the streets in the US. And then only very rarely.

I had never seen a DS Cabriolet until today while backfilling my ignorance gap on Wikipedia. That's a beautiful car.

I mean you have to have a certain mindset while looking at it. I bet it’s not beautiful to many people.

I don't love the SM body style, but the interior/dash is brilliant.

Most all the mid size vans look alike here in the states. I guess that's why I think the H Van looks so appealing. We own a Chrysler Pacifica to haul the grands around in and it's a fantastic car.

As a side note, the stigma on the mini-van is unwarranted, they are very utilitarian and, unless the snow is too deep(8 inches or higher), gets around better than my truck.

Not to mention that all the new "small" trucks force you to get a giant four-door cab, which results in a puny bed. I guess the manufacturers have determined that everyone who wants a small truck is a poser.

Look at Ford's own picture of two hapless hipsters struggling to fit any furniture into a Maverick. They're not even going to get the couch in there, let alone all that other crap: https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16461598...

You're way better off with a minivan.

I believe that this is from 2017. The H Van launched in 1947.

So this is now 77 years and it's still hip.

Here's the 2cv that completed Dakar this year.

https://www.dakar.com/en/news//stage-2/classic/the-duck-ar-g...

>It was a bold move, to say the least. But Barbora Holická and Lucie Engová were not afraid. The two Czech friends decided to take on the challenge of the Dakar Classic, but they also had to pick a vehicle. A 2CV was far from the obvious choice to tackle the Saudi desert, but their decision to start their project by buying the car was based on a sound analysis: "I usually compete in the Czech championship and always in a Citroën", explains Barbora. "So my first thought was to drive a ZX in the Dakar, but it was too expensive, so I came up with the idea of the 2CV, which everyone loves."

>The "Tin Snail" certainly offers incredible bang for buck in terms of charisma, but it looks like a fish out of water in a rally raid and, especially, in the dunes. As a result, they had to come up with a technical plan and make some modifications...

I'm surprised a ZX was more expensive than a 2CV. Over here in Belgium you can get a ZX for 500 bucks no problem, whereas the 2CV is a coveted classic that sells for multiple thousands.

Every time I have to cross a speed bump I miss my old ZX. At the time I could not understand why people felt like they had to decelerate so much. Then I got a modern car with firm suspension and my back did not like the first speed bump I encountered.

I miss mine too, same thing goes for the seats. Modern car seats are so stiff, I'm sure it's a safety thing but I miss the good old cloth sofas the ZX had.

I would've driven it into the ground but low emission zones happened and it became more and more of a hassle to drive unfortunately.

Well either she said it as a joke meaning the ZX Rally Raid which won 4 times the Dakar Rally, either she meant the CX which was also raced in the Dakar in the early years.

it's always mildly funny how much engine power has increased over the years. my bottom-of-the-line SUV gets 184 BHP, these shipped with 35-50 BHP depending on model lol

Passenger car engines are usually rated in peak power now --- and rarely need to output that number --- whereas they used to be continuous and run closer to their maximum power rating.

In Britain at least, taxes were levied on engine horsepower which at various times were calculated by piston stroke or cylinder diameter. Hence many long-stroke narrow cylinder engine designs.

yes, with 35BHP to move my truck I would certainly expect to be running continuously at maximum load ;)

(admittedly it's probably closer to the size/weight of a kei truck than modern half-ton monstrosities lol)

I want a US-homologation Citroën DS-21 (LHD). Currently, I drive a 1985 VW Vanagon GL Westfalia Deluxe (pop-top camper). NLA vehicles are fun.

There are a few companies doing electric versions of this car. Both conversions/restoration and completely new ones. Looks like a lot of fun to drive and as the article suggests, they are popular for using as street food cars. There's something about the design of these things that is just hugely appealing.

The corrugated sheet metal sides reminds me of a Junker:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Ju-Air_Junkers_Ju_52_cras...

The article specifies those as the source

Hah, I missed that. The corrugation was used on Junkers because it added a lot of strength. The downside is the drag it created.

Like the Cybertruck only 70 years earlier - after WW2 there were lot of leftover stuff to be repurposed or a severe shortage of stuff that made for these utilitarian designs at the time.

Morgana

Hip to be square just reminds me of American Psycho lol

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