THE OTHER HYDRO CITROËNS

Those luxury saloons didn't have the monopoly on ride comfort — or weirdness

- Glen Waddington

M35 1969

Weird, even by Citroën standards: only 267 were built of 500 planned, all bodied by coachbuilder Heuliez in coupé style on an Ami 8 base, the smallest of the hydro-suspended Citroëns – and powered by a 497.5cc single-rotor Wankel engine. Each one was labelled a prototype and offered to selected Citroën customers to put all the tech to a real-world test. It was a total showcase yet sadly only 100 escaped the crusher as part of Citroën's buy-back scheme (basically a bid to avoid parts back-up responsibility). Suspension lessons learnt made their way into the subsequent GS, as did the gearbox.

SM 1970-75