🚗🛸 I posted this as a quick “hi” in the Citroënvie! community website. It was supposed to be a short bio. Instead… I accidentally submitted my entire personality. Lima, 1982: a GSA dashboard melted my five-year-old brain and triggered a lifelong obsession. From DSs floating like Parisian ghosts to a Volvo 240 with main character energy—France really said, “you’ll never be normal again.” #carnerd #designfetish.
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Since I have memories, Citroëns have always felt like machines from another dimension—like if aliens came to Earth and said, “Voilà, peasants. A car.” I was six, it was 1982, and there I was in Lima, Peru, losing my tiny mind over the dashboard of a Citroën GSA. I swear it looked like the control panel of a moon lander. That dashboard didn’t just impress me—it imprinted on me.
Around that same time, I made another life-shaping discovery: the father of Mafalda—my all-time favorite cartoon character—drove a Citroën 2CV. That detail stuck with me. I mean, if Mafalda’s dad drove one, that was all the cultural and moral validation a six-year-old could ask for. From that point on, I stopped seeing cars and started seeing character.
Then came the Citroën CXs, floating through the streets of Lima like they were too good for asphalt. They didn’t drive—they glided. They broke every design rule, and honestly? They made it look easy. And just when I thought it couldn’t get more cinematic, my mother drops the bomb: my grandfather used to own a white DS with a full red interior. A white spaceship with red velvet. A mid-century modern lounge on wheels.
Turns out, my mom was also a closet Citroën fangirl—she fell for the BX hard during a trip to Paris in the mid-80s to visit her brother, who (of course) was also driving a Citroën. At this point, the whole thing started feeling hereditary. Clearly, I never stood a chance.
In Lima, the DS was legendary—you didn’t just see one, you respected it. And over time, the hits kept coming: XM, Xantia, C5, C6—each one more “don’t-care-what-you-think” than the last. My admiration became an obsession. I was especially drawn to the poetry of the design choices: those full fender skirts and the mesmerizing hydropneumatic suspension. Watching a Citroën gently lift itself off the ground was like witnessing a car wake up. It was beautiful, bizarre, and so clearly uninterested in mainstream approval—and that strange elegance is still what defines Citroën for me, even if most of it now lives in history books and grainy YouTube videos. That obsession ran so deep that when I applied to HEC in Paris, I wrote my entire application essay on André Citroën himself. (Got in, didn’t go—don’t ask, it’s still a sensitive topic.)
When I moved to the U.S. in the late 2000s, I thought maybe I’d mellow out. Spoiler: I didn’t. If anything, my Citroën love got worse—because I found the American fanbase, and oh boy, they didn’t forget the brand—they canonized it. And it was here, through this wonderfully obsessive crowd, that I also learned more about the impossibly exotic and exquisitely unhinged Citroën SM. Elegant, overengineered, and clearly designed by people who thought physics was optional. And when PSA teased a U.S. comeback in the late 2010s, I had hope. Real, irrational hope. But yeah… we all know how that turned out.
And now? I’m getting closer. Within the next five years, the actual plan is to finally bring home a nice DS. But if we’re allowing ourselves a little fantasy, then sure: a Break or Familiale version would be ideal, so I can finally stop pretending I’m still hunting for that elusive Mercedes S123. (I need a wagon—someone has to resist the SUV apocalypse, right?) And while we’re dreaming, just toss an SM into the bag—Maserati-powered, hydropneumatic, and gloriously unhinged in the most seductive way.
But back to reality: the goal is a "daily-driver" type DS, ID, D —or even a CX, though I won’t lie, their scarcity terrifies me slightly. Nothing concours-level or destined for Pebble Beach, just a solid classic that floats a little, turns heads a bit, and doesn’t actively try to kill me on the Beltway. So if you hear of something coming up in a year or so in the Mid-Atlantic area—appelez-moi—and I swear, first round of pisco sours is on me. If it’s reliable-ish, comfy, and has even a whiff of that Citroën magic, I’m in..
Thrilled to be part of this brilliant, slightly eccentric corner of the universe. Thanks in advance for the inspiration, the tips, and for not judging me when I inevitably ask, “Is it supposed to sound like that… or is that just part of the charm?”
Merci, et à bientôt.
—Fernando
