Citroën Sport

Back in 1988 I organized a Citroën Sport exhibition as part of the 11th Antwerp Old-timer Meeting. With the help of Citroën Belgium and a lot of friends we were able to bring together a very nice line up of sporty Citroëns : DS group 5 rally car, 2 CV Sahara, GS birotor, MEP X27 formule blue race car, SM fuel injection and the then new BX 16v. Some of these cars are unique and the exhibition also showed rare footage of the cars in action.

Citroën 2 CV Sahara, 1961

This car was conceived to go anywhere in the tradition of the pre war "Croisière Noir" and "Croisière Jaune". To get 4 wheel drive the engineers simply installed two complete 425cc drivetrains in the car and coupled the throttle and clutch mechanisms together. You can switch from front wheel drive to rear wheel drive to 4 wheel drive by simply switching on or off the front or rear engine! Fully loaded up this car can climb a sand dune of more than 40% inclination. This car is one of only 694 build and is completely restored by an enthusiast.

Citroën GS birotor, 1974

Together with NSU, Citroën founded Comobil and Comotor to introduce the Wankel engine in regular production cars. While NSU introduced the RO 80, Citroën tested the marked with the special M 35 prototype. 260 of these cars were sold only to preferred customers. With a total of 30 million kilometers the Citroën engineers had acquired enough experience before introducing Citroën's first mass produced Wankel engined car : The GS birotor. This twin rotored engine develops 107 DIN hp at 6500 rpm and is a supersmooth performer with only one problem : a thirst for fuel. The 1973 fuel crisis put an end to the life of this car and Citroën was taken over by Peugeot. This is a rare surviving Birotor in completely original condition with only 900 kms on the clock!

Other cars on display were my fuel injected SM and MEP X27 race car (see former inhabitants of my garage) and the then new 16 valve, 150 hp BX gti. The rarest car on the stand was the DS rally car with a Maserati tuned engine delivering 210bhp from 2,5 liters. This car was on loan from Citroën.

A couple of years later I sort of continued the Citroën Sport theme when the need to reduce my collection was inevitable. On display and for sale were the fastest DS I ever owned (DS 23 injection électronique with 90000 km), a European injection SM and a US 3 liter automatique SM. All cars were sold the same week!