I think that the BX was their last real fling with weirdness before Peugeot took over. It certainly wasn't one of their greatest aesthetic achievements (although it was styled by Marcello Gandini...). I always thought that they looked a bit lop-sided, with the offset badge and the single windscreen wiper. Still, the…

My fellow Citroën owners in NZ had a phrase for that – such designs came from the mythical "Bureau de Bastarde". The 16v BX engine bay earns that title, too. You shouldn't have to unmount the AC compressor to get to the oil filter. And don't even get me started on getting the transmission out. I liked the Xantia bay,…

I don't think that I ever used a proper jack on mine. Oil change? Suspension up, chuck a pair of axle stands underneath, drop it down, voilà!

I think that there was something wrong with the rear regulator on mine, too – it'd sometimes get 'stuck' on low, and I'd have to jump up and down on the tow bar to get it to rise. That was pretty much the only thing wrong with it. I deciphered the ORGA number on it once, and if I recall correctly, it worked out to…

"Oh, that's normal. This is actually one of the better ones that we've seen"

The idea of a Fiat-Citroën union would have been interesting. I wonder if Citroën would have kept some of the flair that they lost through the Peugeot merger that way... I always liked the completely-bonkers approach to engineering in the DS, CX and SM.

Hear, hear. I do find it quite interesting that the DS was pushed out of the market for its safety attributes – directional headlights and load-sensitive brakes and suspension are all the rage now!

I read somewhere that the Citroën system can keep the car balanced with one blown tire. I was never brave enough to try it when I had one, though!

I had an immaculate very early manual 2.0 Xantia (it still had the big hydraulic pump and would sink like a real Citroën) a few years back that I sincerely regret selling when I moved to the US. It had a ridiculous number of kilometres on it, and still drove like a new car.