In a slight deviation from the JDM stuff I’ve been posting lately, here’s a little something I found in an old stash of photos I took back in August 2008 at the International Citroën meet-up in Italy. Just when you thought Citroëns couldn’t get weirder, something like this happens. This is one of a handful of Citroën CX cabriolets made in 1983-85 by Guy Deslandes, who called his creation “Orphée” for mysterious reasons.
The same car at the 2005 Rétromobile – source: Wikicommons
Deslandes was an engineer and a Citroën fanatic who wanted a CX convertible four-seater above all else. He did try asking the few remaining coachbuilders – Heuliez said they didn’t feel up to it; Chapron were game, but quoted an astronomical price. So Deslandes just hired a few extra hands and did it on his own. By the summer of 1983, he had a finished prototype, which he later displayed at the Geneva and Paris Motor Shows in 1984. I believe this white car with a red interior is the show car. Citroën weren’t too keen on the idea, but Deslandes wasn’t about to ask for permission, either. He went ahead with his project completely independently.
The rear section of the car was made in GRP, except the first car, which was all-metal. The doors were lengthened by 11cm to enable access to the rear seats, which entailed getting Saint-Gobain to custom-design the window glass and required moving the B-pillar back. It was sheer madness, but Deslandes did it. Four cars were made, all based on the 2.3 litre CX GTI. The five-dial binnacle seen here is a relatively rare Jaeger period accessory.
In early 1985, a fifth CX special was created, the Avrilly coupé. Soon after, Guy Deslandes gave up on his commendable but curious obsession. It could be argued that a four-door convertible might have been slightly simpler to pull off than a two-door, but obviously this Deslandes character didn’t care for taking the easy route. I’m not sure the coupé survived, but the convertibles are still around – the strangest CXs ever devised. And that’s saying something.
The coupé is, uhhh, interesting, through perhaps it’s just missing a vinyl top to be perfect. But I like the CX décapotable. The proportions lend themselves to a drop-top much better than those of the DS, which has its fans as a convertible; but I’m not one of them.
You cannot be serious. The drop top DS is a gorgeous machine, really beautiful. I saw one parked in front of a railway station when I was on a bike holiday 35 years ago and fell in love with it. Wish I could afford one – they are hugely expensive now.
A few years later I missed out on one. It sat in a garage that burned down – the DS had some damage. I should have bought that one as it was (fairly) cheap.
+1 🙂
Jack Cassady, bassist for the Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, and other bands had one that same color. I saw him driving it more than once near their Fulton Street house.
I can be serious.
Top down, it has vastly too much behindess. Top up ,it looks as if some adventurer pitched a tent on a whale.
Alright, I can’t be entirely serious, but it looks (to me) lesser than the DS.
Yeah, but it’s still a convertible DS.
“Surely you can’t be serious!”
“I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley”
-Airplane, the movie
I’m speechless.
First is a puzzling bit of logic: Mr. Deslandes approached Chapron to commission a CX convertible, but Chapron’s price was “astronomical.” So, Deslandes hired a group of people and proceeded to do it himself in a very thorough way that included custom body panels, glass, interior bits, etc. I imagine the end result couldn’t possibly have been cheaper than Chapron’s original quote. Maybe eccentricity trumps logic in a case like this.
And I’m not quite sure if I like the final result or not. Of course I’m biased by knowing (and loving) the CX’s factory-built bodystyles, but to me, the rounded contours and the flat beltline/trunklid produce a rather bathtub-like appearance. I think I’d have to see one in person in order to pass final judgment!
I think the non-stock headlights detract from it – the convertible, that is. Quite like it though.
Really not sure about the coupe…..
There were a few CXs imported into the US by a grey-market outfit called CX Automotive that wore a similar headlight setup.
https://autoweek.com/article/car-life/throttle-back-thursday-grey-market-citroen-cx-packed-impact-grace-jones-riding
Personally, I don’t find this car to be as awkward as the DS décapotable.
I happen to have an early brochure from CX Automotive — this is the cover… although I’m not sure the yellow lights made it to actual US-sale examples. And if I remember correctly, the CX Automotive CXs did not have any actual Citroen identifications, so there was no chevron on the grille either.
The yellow inboard lights could easily have been deliberately put on US-sale examples, because while two 7″ round sealed beams (one high/low on each side) make a legal system and four 5-3/4″ round sealed beams (one high/low and one high-beam on each side) make a legal system, two 7″ round high/low and two 5-3/4″ high-beam do not make a legal system. So installing a pair of № 4412A yellow sealed-beam fog lamps in the inner mounts would’ve made for a US-legal setup.
However, that particular car doesn’t have US-spec headlamps. It has European-code Cibié H4 7″ high/low outer lamps (with inbuilt parking lights, which is weird because the CX already has parking lights—they’re the colourless lens just outboard of each front turn signal) and Cibié H1 5-3/4″ high-beam inner lamps with internal yellow balloon for compliance with France’s mandate-til-1993 for yellow light.
Oddly, on the back of the CX Automotive brochure is this sketch of a CX convertible — evidently penned by Chapron. Maybe the folks behind CX Automotive talked with Chapron as well about producing such a car, contingent on getting orders for one?
Chapron closed down in 1985, so I believe this is just CXA drawing a fantasy halo car with a defunct coachbuilder’s logo on their brochure for the fun of it.
Ha! So much for my theory!
And I’m shocked that a US importer of gray-market cars would promote a future product that was undeliverable…
Regardless of who drew it, that CX convertible is considerably better looking than Deslandes’ oddity…!
Those are Morette headlamps. Monsieur Jacques Morette was a Frenchman (duh) who wasn’t happy with the stock lamps on his Citroën, so he designed a brackets-and-bezel setup made, mostly of ABS plastic, to take round Marchal headlamps—the types intended for retrofitment of American-market vehicles originally equipped with sealed beams. Over the years he expanded the product range to cover more makes and models, and switched to Cibié lamp units as the Marchals were phased out by Valeo, the corporate owner of both brands.
Morette was a fine, going concern for awhile. Jacques sold the company eventually. New products were still developed into the late 1990s, and sold kits were still supported with replacement parts, until the company fell into the hands of its current owner, a Brit who’s very good at telling stories. In theory, Morette kits and parts are still available. In practice, well, there’s something I find…oh, let’s say repellant…about companies that accept payment only by wire transfer and have a stream of imaginative reasons why your order hasn’t shipped almost as many months long as the list of promised-and-missed ship dates.
Anyhow. Morette headlamps had a small niche application in cars privately imported to the States, since they allowed DOT-compliant headlamps to be installed in those cars. But the main market was always Europeans who wanted to trade their aero headlamps for the four-round-lights look. People want whatever they officially can’t have.
That’s a new one for me. Not worth the effort, but to each his own.
He looks like the car at an imaginary Car Party who stays by the punch bowl and says, “I’m here by the punch bowl, if anyone needs punch, because there’s punch here in this bowl, and I am by it”.
Same car at the International Citroen Car Club Rally in Holland in 1989. Is it the only survivor? And I’m sure I’ve seen it since although the novelty has clearly worn off in terms of my photographic archive…
At least three have survived, there’s a photo of them together on the Web. I think this one is the only one that goes to car shows on a regular basis. Seems it’s also available for rent as a wedding car.
I think I recognize those taillights as upside-down Renault Fuego units.
Sorry, they’re from the Citroën Visa.
Thank you for playing, Monsieur Dennis! 🙂
Awesome… you can’t win if you don’t play! LOL
Not a bad vert, but the rear lights ruin the view.
The coupé does have echos of the Traction Avant coupe; both with the quirky charm lost by Citroën some years ago. One functional variation of the CX was the six wheel wagon, used for high-speed, early morning newspaper deliveries.
Convertibles and Coupes, something Citroen should better not do and leave this niche to Peugeot. The SM is the only nice one they ever made.
I mean these things all look like odballs and are totally out of proportion, even the DS convertible by Chapron, or those horrendous Le Dandy Coupes that were made from the DS are ugly.
Do me a 404 a 504 or a 406 Coupe by Peugeot ( well Pininfarina) anytime.
I mean a 504 Coupe even looks great in Brown..
Mon dieu, seems Mr Deslandes wasn’t no Orpheus (no, not even for those of Underworld), for his music attracted but four (and a fifth who liked roofs or perhaps disliked exposure, probably from that Underworld).
Not sure why Chapron said non, as they’d for years got away with with charging gigantesque Francs to produce a DS lesser than the one with a hardtop. Their piscine-shaped product was even fishier than this four-eyed farnacle, and it deserved more than four admirers even if I wouldn’t have been one.
guys (and gals), focus!
The CX is the best car ever – which I can attest, because I own one and I was late to a meeting last week because I just had to take myriad pictures after parking mine (see below) … I mean, just look at it – and how can a convertible of the best car ever be not … the best car ever?!
Do you live somewhere very warm and dry ? Where I live the CX – nice as it was – is extinct. All eaten alive by tinworm.
The ragtop version doesnt quite work but these cars are getting fairly rare now, minor problems become major headaches because nobody knows how to repair them or the competent repair guy is too far away/expensive, the hydraulic system is fairly simple to understand if you really want to though and shade tree methods are effective, its just that cars are so cheap here nobody can be bothered.
Chapron coupe on BaT
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1965-citroen-ds21-chapron-concorde-coupe/