French Italian mash up

In reply to nlevine (Forum Supporter) :

What a waste. 

Wow, I had heard Burt drove his "wife's" SM in that movie, but did not realize they destroyed it. I have the original sales receipt for the car from 1972, it was almost 12K way back then, as expensive or more than a 911, E-Type and almost as much as a Ferrari Dino.

When I saw "French Italian Mash Up," I was certain it was going to be an SM.  And here we are.

I kept telling my wife I had bought a Maserati as she had no idea what a Citroen is...... Now she is having me send her pictures to show her co-workers. This might be one she likes once it is on the road.

Car came home this week. I spend last Saturday with the previous owner, we tried to get it running but no bueno, so I had a flatbed come pick it up. The previous owner has a narrow driveway up in the woods, with a bridge across a small creek and I did not want to try to bring the Suburban and a trailer up there to get a car that was hard to steer and down on the bump stops due to the hydraulic suspension. We did pump it up by spinning the alternator with a drill so we could move the car around. Was really cool to see the car lift off the ground.

I have a few projects ahead of this but after looking over the car and having my body guy also look at it, this will get restored, too nice not to do it right!

That picture is awesome

It really is an amazing looking car. 

They have really grown on me, the styling is very futuristic still 50 years later.....

It will really look cool with the European glass covers I got from France.  It is too expensive to find a front end and ship it here with the steerable 6 headlights, but the European covers over the quad lights still looks like it was supposed to look like in the original design.

In reply to dherr (Forum Supporter) :

Two things that I really did not like as a kid were green cars and Citroen SMs ... but I absolutely love this!

I can't wait to follow along. It looks great and I am slowly becoming fascinated by them. Have fun with it!

I worked for a Citroen dealer when these were new, they are just amazing cars to drive, especially with the manual. The three speed auto gearboxes? Not so much....... tho most of them sold in the US had the automatic.

The brakes only take a small amount of driving to get used to, you just don't shove a pedal down - the button only has about 1/2" of travel. Same system used on the DS and they actually were very easy to modulate once you understood how they work.

The weak spot of the Maserati engine were the timing chains, by 50K they had to be changed, but the better oils we have today should help. They're not horrible to change, we did them engine-in by attaching the new chain to the old and pulling it thru. I did many of them......

Wow, how did I miss this!?

Please share as much of your ownership journey as possible, I love these things.

In reply to golfduke :

If you watch the movie "The French Connection," a Citroen SM was used for the chase scene.   My dad bought a '72 SM in 1976, and spent the next 10 years getting it to run properly, as the Weber carburetors needed work and parts were not easy to find.  

So last weekend when we were trying to get the car started to move it, the previous owner said he heard a "pop" when he cranked it and there was now antifreeze leaking under the car from the rear bank and there was some coolant in the corner cylinder. Guessing the head gasket, but to be sure, these engines need to come out and you really need to go through it, timing chains must be replaced, exhaust valves need to be replaced as both are known problem areas. I want to get the engine out as soon as possible to make sure all is good, but in the meantime, I found a spare engine to use for parts or to rebuild that is local and I have my choice of three to choose from. Fairly local to me, he has taken apart 6 cars and has a ton of spare parts. This was one of them, but I'll look at all three and choose the best one for my needs. Even if I just use it for a spare set of heads, it was well worth what I paid for it in parts.

No illusion, the V6 faces the firewall, the transmission sits in front of it, driving the front wheels (same transmission as a Lotus Esprit and Maserati Merak).

Is it wrong to think that would be the perfect drivetrain for a restomod Traction Avant? 

Yeah, this is a radical ride. It scratches many mechanical/intellectual itches.