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Comment by drcongo | Hacker News Reader

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

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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...

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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

I always thought the XM was very pretty.

Loved that hiss.

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

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