The SM Tribute Concept Is An Homage To The Best, Worst Citroen

The magnificent folly that was the Citroen SM has been revived as a concept to celebrate 10 years of the DS brand

11 Sep 2024

Produced between 1970 and 1975, the Citroen SM was a car as beautiful to behold as it was a nightmare to own. Combining Citroen’s spectacularly complicated hydropneumatic suspension and a front-wheel drive powertrain with a V6 engine from Maserati (which Citroen owned at the time), it topped it all off with one of the most unconventionally beautiful bodies ever bestowed upon a car.

It stands out today as a total folly, albeit one that’s now a painfully cool, stone-cold classic, and it’s with that latter reputation in mind that Citroen’s DS luxury sub-brand has revived it as a concept to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

Called the SM Tribute, it updates some of the original car’s distinctive features (and there were plenty of them) for the 21st century: the glassed-in front panel that encompassed the headlights, the aero-friendly spats over the rear wheels, and the way the entire rear of the car tapers inwards.

The inside – which we only see in the form of digital renders – also references the ’70s original with features like the sweeping curve of the dash and the ribbed, one-piece front with their distinctive curves.

The SM Tribute is purely a styling model, and there are no details given about what theoretical powertrain it has. Because it’s a concept car and it’s 2024, we have to assume that it’s been envisioned as an electric car, but here’s a thought experiment: Citroen and Maserati are once again part of the same corporate entity thanks to PSA merging with Fiat-Chrysler to form Stellantis, and Maserati currently makes a very good V6 engine, the 3.0-litre, twin-turbo Nettuno.

Of course, if it was really replicating the original SM, it would have to be front-wheel drive too, which might struggle to cope with even the lowest-output Nettuno’s 523bhp, but it’s fun to imagine, right?

Imagining is just what we’ll have to keep doing because we reckon chances of the SM Tribute making production are slim to none. If DS does revisit any great luxury Citroens of the past, it’s more likely to be the iconic original DS saloon, but hey – we can dream, right?

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.