One of the prettiest cars of all time is now our Car of the Week: the Citroen SM.

The Citroen DS was one of the most revolutionary cars of the 20th century and to this day is remembered as one of the all time classics. The Citroen SM was based on the DS, but this time they had an ace up their sleeve: Maserati.

In 1968, Citroen bought Maserati. Their first order of business was to create a GT car. The result was the SM. Introduced in 1970, it had a 2.7L Maserati V6 producing 180 hp.  The hydraulic suspension system was taken from the DS, but tweaked and more advanced.

Of course, you can’t ignore the styling. It took design cues from the DS, like the hidden back wheels and low taillights. This, combined with the pointy and aggressive front end, made it a timeless design.

As a technical and design exercise, it was an amazing feat. However, as with most European cars of the 70’s, it didn’t take much time for reliability issues to appear. The overly complicated suspension and engine made it hard to work on, it also had to overcome the 1973 oil crisis.

It was never meant to be, and by 1975, when Peugeot acquired Citroen, the SM was quietly put down.

There you have it, our Car of the Week: the Citroen SM.

Image Credits (Top to bottom):

Image 1: hmboo / CC BY-NC 2.0

Image 2 and 3: Roland Brunner (1) (2) / CC BY-ND 2.0