Finalist: 1970s
1972 Citroën SM
First foreign COTY
of the engine driving the front
wheels. As American auto-
makers were limping into the
malaise era, the Citroën was a
technological tour de force. Or
at the least it tried to be.
Nearly a half century later,
Bill Lundby’s personal 1973
SM is as strange to drive as it
sounds. The steering is lightning
quick, so you’re often correcting
yourself after turning harder
than you’d intended. Once you
have that figured out, you have
to learn to be deliberate as you
return the wheel to center. Most
cars return to center slowly; the
SM’s steering wheel snaps back
quickly enough to have you
flopping around the cabin.
The brake button is pressure
sensitive but has almost no
travel, seemingly taking your
input and figuring the rest out
for itself. The dynamic brake
proportioning means the car
never dives under braking or
squats under acceleration but
simply settles or lifts gently.
This body control only applies
to longitudinal behavior. Turn
a corner and glance out the
window, and you might catch
a glimpse of the door handle
dragging on the ground. The
car has a front anti-roll bar,
but it’s apparently cosmetic.
The motions are controlled and
predictable, and the car returnsto upright just as nicely. There’s
just more motion than needs be.
The highlight, though, is a ride
quality that would make Rolls-
Royce envious. (Indeed, Rolls
licensed the technology in 1965
for the Silver Shadow.) Potholes,
speed bumps, cracks, seams,
even cattle guards simply cease
to exist under the wheels of an
SM. They’re heard but never felt,
not in the chassis and not in the
steering. The multiposition ride
height is just a bonus.
That tech would also doom
the SM. Citroën did not get the
exemption it expected from
5-mph bumper regulations
in the U.S., its largest export
market, in 1974. That and the
need for separate Citroën and
Maserati specialists to service
the car turned off customers
worldwide. The SM was dead by- Only 12,920 were built.
That the car was a moon-
shot didn’t concern our judges.
Rather, it invigorated them.“The
cars we evaluated as Car of the
Year from [1952] on were looked
to as promising directions for
the automobile evolution,”
we wrote. “Viewed in the
perspective of the last twen-
ty-one years, the SM fits more
precisely in the spirit of the Car
of the Year, maybe better than
anything else being made in the
world today.” SE
T
here’s no brake pedal. Just
a big, black button on the
floor between the gas and
the clutch. The pictograms
on the buttons, switches, and
warning lights make no sense.
The seats are either reclined or
really reclined. The Citroën SM
seems like a UFO, making you
wonder what our experts made
of it in 1972. Except we do know:
They made it the first foreign-
branded Car of the Year.
It was an illustrious panel,
to be sure. Created in 1971 to
bring industry expertise to
our judging, the Conference
of Automotive Research
Specialists (CARS) included
racer Phil Hill, racer and
automotive safety engineer Bill
Milliken, automotive engineer/
designer/reporter/author
Karl Ludvigsen, automotive
designer and Art Center designprofessor Strother McMinn, and
MotorTrend EIC Eric Dahlquist.
That the SM was heavily
based on the existing DS’
mechanicals was outweighed
by the advancement of the
technology. A technical dive
involving rare access to Citroën
officials described enhance-
ments to the car’s hydropneu-
matic systems, a rework of the
DS’ unique control-arm front
suspension, an automatic
brake-force proportioning
system, and a hydraulically
powered steering centering
mechanism to compensate for
the race car–quick steering
ratio at high speeds.
Also receiving good-natured
scrutiny: the car’s wind tunnel–
tested aerodynamics and its
new Maserati V-6 with 170 net
hp nosed up to the firewall with
the five-speed transaxle ahead38 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 201970TH ANNIVERSARY I UCOTY