Maserati-powered Citroen SM celebrates 40 years

The only French car ever to be awarded Motor Trend's Car of the Year celebrates its 40th birthday today. Quirky and exotic in the way Citroens once were, the company's flagship front-wheel-drive car was lauded at the time for being a phenomenal long-distance cruiser - when it ran.

The early 1970s weren't exactly the best of times for Italian and French automotive quality. While engineering firms were scheming up some brilliant ideas designed to make the best of the driving experience, the now-legendary quality control eventually forced all but the most expensive exotic cars out of the lucrative North American market. Such was the case with the SM.

Long recognized as a builder of tremendously plush, yet sporty cars, Citroen achieved worldwide fame for its DS. Snapped up by the world's elite, the DS could be seen shuffling anyone from well-heeled American college professors to African dictators with questionable ethics from place to place. To enter the new decade in high style, Citroen purchased Italian sports car manufacturer Maserati with the intention of creating a high-performance touring coupe well-suited to parking next to a DS in an enthusiastic owner's driveway.

The car was developed prior to Citroen's acquisition of Maserati, but it's hard to imagine the car's true performance nature without its Italian heart. Depending on model year and market, a trio of Maserati V6 configurations ranging from 170 to 180 horsepower motivated the coupe.

The car, which had been under development for nearly 10 years, debuted 40 years ago today at the Geneva Motor Show. It featured such then-jaw-dropping technologies as variable assist power steering, a self-leveling suspension (nabbed from the DS), rain-sensitive windshield wipers, inboard front disc brakes and automatic-leveling swivel headlamps. In short, it was a technical tour de force that immediately wowed Leftlane's predecessors because of its sporty handling and supreme comfort. For a front-wheel-drive car, this praise was nothing short of astounding.

The SM jumped across the pond in 1972, promptly winning Motor Trend's Car of the Year award - the first such showing for an imported vehicle. Although it was an expensive car, the market for personal luxury cars was especially strong in the United States and sales were relatively brisk for an expensive import.

Yet its success in North America was short-lived: NHTSA bumper regulations caught Citroen off guard and the company was unable to sell any SMs in the U.S. market in 1974. In France, meanwhile, Citroen was acquired by Peugeot, who quickly divested the money-losing Maserati brand and deemed the expensive-to-build and generally unreliable SM a liability. A short 1975 model year proved to be the coupe's last.

For better or worse, Peugeot-owned Citroen has never since tried to take on the luxury high-end market in quite the same style. The DS' successor, the CX, received some of the SM's technologies, but Citroen was well on its way down a slippery slope by the time the CX went out of production.

We're encouraged to see Citroen taking a new direction with its latest DS3, which revives an historic name but offers a fresh take on the concept. Will we ever see another SM?