Citroën BX

Vehicle Overview

The Citroën BX with its angular hatchback design was penned by Marcello Gandini of Bertone, based on his unused design for the British 1977 Reliant FW11 concept and his 1979 Volvo Tundra concept car. The BX shared its platform with the more conventional 405 that appeared in 1987, except the rear suspension which is from a Peugeot 305 Break. Among the features that set the car apart from the competition was the traditional Citroën hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension, extensive use of plastic body panels (bonnet, tailgate, bumpers), and front and rear disc brakes. The gestation of the Citroën BX began in early 1977, when the XB project was initiated, intended to create the successor to the GS. It was intended to retain some general settings of the latter, such as the profiled hatchback body, the partially fairing rear wheels and, of course, the use of the semi-active adaptive self-levelling type hydropneumatic suspension, by then almost a trademark for Citroën’s mid- and high-end models. At Citroën, however, management could no longer count on Robert Opron, already the creator of the GS itself and other models; he, in fact, resigned after the merger with Peugeot in the PSA Group would land at Renault. The first full-scale models are dated 1977 and were very much inspired by the GS, its heir GSA, as well as the flagship CX debuted 1978; after which the top management of the newly formed PSA Group also had a prototype built in 1979, strongly inspired by the Peugeot 305, also introduced in 1977. The results, however, were not at all convincing; precisely for this reason, Citroën chose to avail itself of an external collaboration with Bertone, which commissioned Marcello Gandini for the job. The latter, in fact, was the Italian designer already responsible for such cars as the Lamborghini Countach, the Maserati Khamsin and the Alfa Romeo Montreal. The Turin atelier required Gandini for the Citroën BX to take a cue from a concept presented by Bertone itself in that 1977, namely the Reliant FW11, a prototype (also proposed for the Turkish manufacturer Anadol) that never went into production with the English brand (or Turkish brand). Marcello Gandini was thus inspired both by that prototype and also by a later prototype, also by Bertone and called the Volvo Tundra and dating back to just from 1979. Since the lines of the Citroën BX did not prove to be extremely innovative, the Piedmontese design house chose to focus on innovation in the choice of materials: that is why for the new car they chose to make some body panels in fiberglass, such as the wide rear hatch, the rear side pillars and even, on some versions, the front hood. This solution was desired for at least two reasons, namely to contain the mass of the car and to ensure a lower center of gravity. In the meantime, as far as mechanics were concerned, the directives of the new masters of the French brand imposed the renunciation of the traditional air-cooled boxer engine in favor of the more innovative water-cooled PSA units that had already been in force for some time in several Peugeot models. The first tests of such mechanics were conducted on the road using a mule with bodywork almost identical to that of the GS.