We’ve enjoyed the pleasure of seven Citroën BXs over the years. The quintessential 1980’s design is in my opinion, probably all the car you might ever need and one that works perfectly well in modern traffic conditions, especially given the appalling state of British roads these days, combining the traditional Citroën hydropneumatic ‘magic-carpet’ ride with just as much performance and conveniences as you really need in a car. Ownership has not been continuous over the last 40 years but picking up where we left off was easy; just like coming home.
In the spring of 1985 and after a full year in my new job as a town planning consultant I had covered more than 30,000 miles in the Ford Escort 1.3L that my employer had provided for me. As part of my review I did a deal with the Senior Partners. One of the Junior Partners had been running a 1983 Citroën BX 16TRS (top of the line when it was new) and was due for a change. My pitch was: sell the Ford now, it’s out of warranty but still worth more traded in than the Citroën and let me run the BX up to 100,000 miles. It was agreed without further question.
As a result, A518 YMR became mine to look after. I felt I’d made it, a Citroën fan with a fully expensed Citroën for a company car – and a top spec one at that. It served me well for the next 50,000 miles and the Junior Partner bought it back for his wife when I negotiated its replacement.
The 1st of August 1987 saw a change from ‘D’ prefix to ‘E’ and delivery of the first new car of my choice, having been promoted to the role of Senior Project Manager. Unsurprisingly, E358 VMW was a Citroën BX 19GTi. I chose black with black interior and tinted glass in homage to Hotblack Desiato’s spaceship in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and if I’d been on cloud nine with the 16TRS I was now over the moon. Things were definitely going well.
Meanwhile, whilst the 2CV Van was technically Janice’s daily drive and even after managing a faultless trip to Portugal, it wasn’t always the most dependable in daily use. When an old University friend said he was going to change his car and asked if she would be interested, she jumped at the chance and so we became a two BX family. A597 PWT was a blue 16RS, first registered in 1983. Not as plush as the 16TRS and without the niceties of a sunroof, ABS and power steering compared to the GTi, but a thoroughly usable car and wearing its first 5 years well.
A597 PWT made the move back to Cambridgeshire with us in 1989 when I was invited to become a Partner and open up a new regional office for the company. It was exchanged in 1991 for a red BX GTi, which Janice liked a great deal until the point she began to fall out of love with it. Spoiler Alert: there were other new and exciting toys to play with. The red GTi, genuinely so loved that we don’t have a single photo for 5 years of ownership and neither of us can even remember the registration number, was a big step up for her, as had been my GTi. The extra performance made journeys more effortless and power steering transformed the car when playing the role of shopping trolley, especially when our daughter entered the scene.
Meanwhile, E358 VMW’s life whilst a happy one was unfortunately also a short one. Before it could turn one year old, it was the car in which I had my only serious accident. It was car three in a four vehicle shunt, taking the full force of a (smallish) truck in the rear. Whether the seat collapsing saved my back or contributed to the whiplash I felt for several years after, I’m not quite sure but as I picked the shards of rear window out of my hair I could see the fold in the roof and that would be the end of that. At least the early July date meant I could look forward to another new car on 1st August 1988 – which will be the subject of the next chapter and, Spoiler Alert: it was not another Citroën BX.
E358 VMW’s replacement lasted me almost five years and took us to the depths of the recession in my business, which occurred in the spring of 1992. For reasons that, with hindsight, were not as well thought out as they might have been, I took on another BX GTi, a white one this time. It had been well used – thrashed to within an inch of its life – by its previous keeper but it would be more economical to run and the company needed every penny it could save. My abiding memory is the realisation of how much I made use of the ABS because the ABS didn’t work on this BX and I had a few buttock clenching episodes, mainly involving the arrival at wet junctions rather too fast. But that is still how I roll. It was a short term love-hate relationship because in the summer of ’92 I left the failing business to start a whole new chapter for myself. It was, however, not the most disappointing car I ever had. Apologies, I digress.
In the story of seven BX’s I invite you to forget 1992 and scroll forward more than twenty years to 2015. The children had grown up and got their driving licences, but the car they had shared their early years’ experiences was proving less than dependable. It would have to go and a mechanic friend of ours told us of a Citroën BX that he had been asked to recommission and sell. Our son is methodical in all that he does but not a natural driver, and it seemed to me that something that required a thoughtful approach might be just what he needed to hone his skills. I figured if he could master a car with stick shift, no power steering, no ABS and, best of all, running a carburetor with a manual choke, he’d be able to manage anything the future world would throw at him. F306 TBF, a 1988 Citroën BX 14RE sounded like a perfect idea. Not a lot of money was handed over and it joined the family, reminding us of just how good these cars had been in the day and still were.
We would sit in the house and hear the starter motor churning. I’d look at my wife Janice and we would mouth to each other, “Freddie pull the b***** choke out”. Then he’d remember and the car would burst into life. F306 TBF worked for its living with numerous trips to Freddie’s university about 2 hours distant.
That said, its life with us was comparatively short. My Uncle Bill had a white 1990 BX 14TRE – identical to the grey car but with a sunroof – and I’d always said that one day I would take it on. At the age of 93 in 2017, Aunt Judy finally persuaded him to stop driving. I went down to the south coast to collect it and he wished me well, advising that his car had covered less than 50 miles in the previous 2 years and fully expecting me not to get home without assistance. In fact it was in good mechanical form and got better the closer I got to home, the engine freeing up with some fast road mileage. We didn’t need two identical BXs and Freddie departed these shores for a life in Japan, so the grey car was sold and H978 BPO has become part of the family, an heirloom that I look after on behalf of my aunt and my cousins and use at least weekly.
H978 BPO was far from pristine, Uncle Bill having caught his gateposts a few too many times, but we found a white BX which was going for scrap due to corrosion that made it uneconomic to repair. It had good external panels, so we stripped it down to the shell and used what we needed to renovate our car so that today it looks passably good – like all older Citroëns, nothing is welded that could be bolted on for easy replacement.
I’d worried I wouldn’t enjoy a BX 14, that it would feel slow and outdated compared to modern cars and the rose tinted memories of the GTi in the 80’s but the fact is it’s lighter and lacks nothing for performance whilst the hydro-pneumatic suspension is perfect for our local roads – in fact living out in the countryside there are routes that make it the car of choice.
Like its predecessor H978 BPO has to earn its keep, whether that’s light errands round the locality or heavy duty jobs like moving rubble for scrap and fetching cement, where self-leveling suspension helps make light work of loads. The lack of power steering makes it harder work for supermarket car parks, especially where we have easier choices, but it has every convenience for modern life, including most importantly a rear wiper which is essential for a car that lives outside and the only way out is backwards. So, another car has come to live with us permanently and H978 BPO is definitely one of the family.
Related CC reading:
1990 Citroen BX – Some Peugeot Bones Well Hidden In A Citroen Suit
Citroen BX – Fastback Meets Squareback
In an alternate life, I can imagine myself being besotted with the BX, or multiple BXs. Such a unique combination of traits and eccentricities.
Great write up! If any Citroën called be called sensible it is probably the BX. A very logical and usable design. I did not think much of the looks when they were new but the styling has aged very well while still looking very of the period.
“…probably all the car you might ever need…” That is illustrated by the final photograph showing the open hatch and the pile of wood. People rarely haul more than what that hatch can hold. But “all the car you might ever need” does not consider psychological needs which drive the purchase of most vehicles in the United States.
Unfortunately 90 percent (my estimate) of car buyers are not car guys. As much as people’s decisions frustrate us car guys, we have to remember that their priorities are different from ours. They buy some of the most useless shite imaginable, but it’s their money.
One of the last real Citroens: quirky, comfortable and with a style that was unmistakable, whether or not you liked it. It was also a great buy, priced as smaller cars while offering the space and comfort of a higher category. Not surprisingly it had good success
I learned to drive on an AX GT which had a higher power variant variant of the same TU3 engine of your RE and the choke is a persistent memory: you had to pull it just right or the engine would not start. Just right being highly variable depending on a combination of weather and temperature.
The rear bumper brings back another memory as most grey plastic Citroen bumpers of the day faded exactly like that over time
From what i understand a Phase 2 BX is much better in terms of refinement and perceived quality, but there is something so charming about the very early BXs for me. With the simple sharp bumpers, mismatched blinkers, and the wild scifi dashboard, it’s so very late 70s-early 80s in a neat, characterful way. Almost like made out of Legos. That blue 16RS side view is delightful.
I wonder if the brilliant and handsome Xantia would ever have existed without the BX.
In my COAL series I never wrote up the time I had with my BX.
It was a replacement for our Subaru Outback 3.0 which began to show possible transmission troubles.
In a search for a perfect replacement, the BX seemed to fit all. Sylvia preferred an automatic, and a hydraulic suspension Citroën with an autobox is a prefect combination (I had owned a CX auto before).
The BX is more practical than a CX being shorter and having that very useful rear hatch.
I found us a 1989 GTi automatic. Had to replace the two rear spheres but that was all it needed. I enjoyed the car a lot, but Sylvia and my son thought not so. They disliked it. The fact that it did not have AC in a very hot summer helped in making the decision to sell it. It was bought by a Citroën collector, and as far as I know is still shown in his car dealer showroom.
Great car, as are many Citroëns.
I had a BX 1.9 GTi (1986) . Loved the car but crashed it (twice) and it didn’t survive the fight with the tree. I was too young (23) as my first car and not enough skill on country roads. Still yearn for one
I had two in the 80’s, a white one in the cheapest trim possible, that destroyed her gearbox in a week. And another very cheap one in dark blue that lasted a bit longer. Nice cars to drive. One of my coworkers stiil drives one as his daily.
Cool cars but they are becoming rare in NZ now, Citroen finally abandoned the BX platform in 07 so no more hatchbacks in large then they built 50 more with the new DW12C engines and flung them out into the world, the problem with Citroens is the really isnt anything else like them, that makes it hard to buy anything else and garages dont understand how they work when they dont.
Anyone seen the Dutch movie, ‘Flodder’?
Yeah, they broadcasted this series, here in Germany, years ago. We have such types, here in this apartment house, where I reside
These cars always looked like something out of a 1980s Hollywood movie with car props to look futuristic in the story time (like Back To The Future II). They were very intriguing cars and I saw them all over Europe when I visited there in college one summer in the late 1980s.
The French didn’t take the US market seriously enough for Citroen and I think it could have been a lot more successful and competitive in the niche middle class European brand market that VW, Volvo, and Saab had. Even Peugeot had a market and of course Renault.
Heck look at the cool new Citroen C5 X and Peugeot 408 which are more hatch/wagon and less SUV/CUV! Not everyone wants a boring SUV/CUV which are everywhere. Those two models alone would sell in the US without question. Missed opportunities if you ask me.
The main problem for Citroen in the US market was new DOT/NHTSA regs in the early ’70s mandating headlight and bumper heights, which could not readily be met with the variable-height and self-leveling Citroen hydropneumatic suspension.
Perhaps a solution could have been devised, but apparently it just wasn’t worth the investment for the minuscule sales volume Citroen had been doing here up to then anyway.
Possibly because I am unable to fold so much as a pair of undies, I don’t favor origami, and actively dislike it when applied to cars. Everything on a BX except the tyres is flat and folded, and creased and crisp, and yet I love it. Perhaps I see some echo of a Lambo Marzal, my exotica favorite? (Don’t laugh: there’s touches of it in the Volvo Tundra which the BX is based upon). Though tempted, it would be lazy to describe the flat-pack looks as “industrial”, ala first-gen Panda or the like, even though it really is. No, Ghandini did something just right with the proportions of the mundane, squared-off details here, and 45 years on, it just works.
I like it less and less as it aged, and was tarted upon with bits of extra glued about the exterior, not to mention an interior made cheaper, and normaller, and probably everyday better.
You survived the one thing that does terrify about the cars, which is have a big prang in one, and live. The seat shouldn’t have collapsed, but maybe I’m wrong for the era about that.
I applaud your choices. All power to you for persisting with such essentially excellent, and eccentric, cars.
I understand the attraction of the Disaster Area stunt ship look, and the contemporary Volvo 740 Turbo could be equally black. I think an all white BX 19 GTi is one of the most 80s cars imaginable like Banarama or Haircut 100 in car form.
I’m fascinated by Citroens, partly for weirdness, and partly for rarity in the US since official imports ended in 1974 although CX Auto did some grey imports in the 80s. . I suppose I could rebadge a Ram ProMaster as a Citroen Jumper since it’s the same Sevel van.