CITROEN BX
WHAT DO A Peugeot 205, Marcello Gandini, Volvo, Reliant, and eternal ruin all have in common? Either directly or indirectly, they’re all connected to the Citroen BX.
From an Australian perspective, the BX was such a peripheral car – hobbled by restrictive import duties that prevented many Continental classics from thriving here during the 1980s – but in Europe, the BX saved Citroen’s bacon.
Across a 12-year lifespan, more than 2.3 million were produced, and while those numbers have since dwindled dramatically, interest in the BX has skyrocketed in recent years as people have finally started to treasure its fine engineering, individual design and inherent reliability.
The BX was the first complete car developed by Citroen after its takeover by Peugeot in 1976 (following Citroen’s bankruptcy), and while those sugar-daddy funds allowed Citroen to continue producing weird, non-mainstream products such as the CX, GS and 2CV, what it needed was a proper commercial hit.
