Infrequent bursts of fawning published in these pages will prove that the Citroën SM, in its quiet yet revolutionary way, is perhaps the most remarkable automobile ever manufactured. Yet owning one is clearly out of the picture.

Consider: if the engine goes, you’ll have to find a mechanic familiar with 40-year-old carbureted Maserati engines. Then, if anything else goes, you’ll need another mechanic intimate with 40-year-old hydropneumatic Citroëns. If you multiply the respective probabilities of finding such mechanics, you will feel the blood drain from your face.

The nightmarish nature of this scenario is not specific to the United States: contrary to popular belief, Europe does not have trees with mixed bunches of Maserati and Citroën mechanics cavorting on low-hanging branches either.

Yet the SM exerts a powerful visceral tug. Its parts are remarkable by themselves, but the SM is clear testament to the idea that on occasion the whole is indeeed greater than the sum of parts. The strange yet mellifluous 90° V6, the DIRAVI steering, the hydropneumatics, the incredible cabin: the SM’s components combine to make a car that has the ability to cruise in complete comfort at 125 MPH between fillups without breaking down.

Think about that: neither occasional bursts of speed for joy or overtaking nor a single cross-continental blitz with the result of you being on time and your car a smoldering wreck, but a grand tourer for regular grand tours.

The world has since moved on from such earthbound flights of fancy. The SM’s was a world infinitely less hostile to the automobile than ours. Its vehicular contemporaries were:

1. A hypersonic civilian jetliner flirting with time travel
2. A military spy plane made of titanium which could outrun anti-aircraft rockets
3. An air-cooled twelve-cylinder racing car with 1500 HP
4. A giant space rocket which regularly whisked American men from the gravitational pull of the Earth to deposit them on the surface of the Moon
5. The Lamborghini Miura

Yes, wow. That was four decades ago.

Perhaps we should all just forget about the Citroën SM. Ours is a world not of grand tours but of shuffling in socks through airports and molassing along at 65 MPH in plastic cabins.

Yet imagine! Just imagine a contemporary SM.

The Japanese would have to build it. The Japanese are less interested in haphazard, grandiose revolution than in taking established concepts and polishing them to perfection. The way Toyota usurped Mercedes-Benz’s lead in luxury sedans to produce the last word in personal transportation inside motorized whales, the Lexus LS600hL.

But a modern SM is not a Toyota job. In spite of occasional displays of deep petrolhead inspiration—the 2000GT, the AE86, the LFA—Toyota does not make touring cars you’d like to tour in high style in. The modern SM should be a Honda, built on Soichiro Honda’s legacy of mechanical madness and racing chops.

In fact, Honda has already made something akin to a modern SM: the NSX of 1991, a perfect, luxurious grand tourer disguised as a mid-engined sports car and generally mistaken for a Ferrari. Plus, they have taken the SM’s glass headlights enclosure and installed it on the current Civic, which is as close in chutzpah to the SM as a mass-market hatchback can be.

(And it’s not like cooperation between Japanese and French carmakers is such a long shot either. In fact, Citroën already makes a crossover called the C-Crosser on a Japanese platform, the Mitsubishi GS: a base for excellence like the Evo X and also for the abomination that is the Chrysler Sebring.)

Honda could pull it off. As for what our slow world could do with the perfect idea of the touring car executed with Japenese attention to detail, I do not have a clue. But do we really want to go down in history as the generation which has all but abandoned forward motion?

Photo Credit: PlingPlöng/Flickr, afghtiga/Flickr, Infinite Jeff/Flickr, cosmicspanner/Flickr, Ignacio Conejo/Flickr, Jim Ross/NASA, nielsvk/Flickr, Steve Kay/Flickr

Face it: I'm a doofus when it comes to taking care of the modern car. The replacement of mechanics with electronics has shifted the power of tinkering squarely into the domain of geeks. But there still exist a few simple car maintenance tasks we should be able to perform without expensive shop time.

The blatant frenchsploitation displayed above is the work of Tim Street, a Disney World engineer turned television writer, who began producing French Maid TV in 2006. Street’s videos teach you how to do simple things, employing women with huge breasts and fake French accents to hold your attention and your jacques and jacques stands.

How To Change Your Oil is one of those videos you’ll watch over and over again, amazed and that a professional production has actually drawn the parallels between oil spillage and mammary intercourse in the most explicit way.

Even more amazing is that the video is actually useful. Useful for learning how to change your oil, that is. Especially if you drive a US-spec Citroën SM, that is.

The Citroën SM stands on the precipice of Vorsprung, it is from an era when the casual observer could believe in an eternity of progress. Men had repeatedly walked on the Moon, rock music was reaching for lofty heights and there was a passenger airplane, manufactured by an unlikely consortium of state-owned British and French firms, which could travel at twice the speed of sound.

We don’t have such planes now. The Concorde was mankind’s only functioning time machine available for non-military use: you could have lunch in London, digest it aboard and continue your day—with breakfast in New York City.

The Citroën SM was the Concorde’s contemporary, borne of a similar transnational corporate background, but it was the Italians instead of the British who partnered the French this time. The M in SM stands for Maserati, owned by Citroën at the time and responsible for the SM’s engine, but I needn’t tell you all this: google “Citroën SM” and you will find right on the first page a feature article published on this very website which will tell you all about it.

You can go for years and years without seeing an SM and this is not an accident: its relentlessly futuristic engineering was marred by the combined unreliability of its French and Italian heritage. If you were to fantasize about seeing one in the wild, you would probably conjure images of French country roads or Italian mountain passes but surely not Telegraph Road in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills.

Specifically the restaurant Andiamo, formerly known as the Machus Red Fox, most famous for being the place where Jimmy Hoffa was last seen alive.

Yet that is exactly where Ray Wert, John Krewson and I saw a working SM for the first time in our collective lives. We were on our way back to New York City, returning from the Woodward Dream Cruise, and we stopped for breakfast at Steve's Deli across from the restaurant where Jimmy Hoffa was last seen, waving goodbye to the monster portions and trans fats of Midwestern cuisine.

We were just about to leave our Camaro and enter a local house of wonderful fat when we saw it. A golden SM, getting ready to leave. It was an American-spec SM, easily recognizable by its four fixed headlights in place of the original’s six swiveling ones, which could not slip through U.S. regulations. An actual human was sitting in the driver’s seat. Upon his commands, the vehicle moved under its own power. An artifact of more promising times, when engineering was set to conquer the future in style. Need evidence? Here’s L.J.K. Setright on the SM’s hydropneumatic steering in his book Drive On!:

Just imagine: a year after the Concorde, fastest and most beautiful of Bristols, had taken to the air in defiance of kinetic heating, pressure gradients, trim changes and all the control and other problems associated with sustained flight at 60,000ft and Mach 2, the fuddies and the duddies were shaken with dismay by the very thought of the Citroën SM having fully powered steering with entirely artificial feel. It was simple, really: the basic accumulator pressure powered the steering, but pitted against it was the output of a secondary pump driven by the transmission so that its output was proportional to the road speed of the car. At parking speeds, it offered no resistance; at 110mph there was enough to cancel assitance.

The SM motored away and we went inside to dive into plates of high calorie breakfasts. Outside, under an August sun not yet bearing down with its full power, the SM was spooling up its hyperdrives. This rolling projectile of weird magnificence, this golden and flawed and slippery capsule from the space age, a car ahead of its time both in design and acceptable ratios of high engineering versus reliability, it motored away.

Wert and Krewson had omelettes. I had French toast. It was okay. (Technically, I had salami and eggs at Steve's Deli. — Ed.)

Photo Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images (Concorde) and the author

Even if we'd found an ad for the actual Apollo 16 Lunar Rover, hauled back to Earth by a North Korean spaceship, burned up on reentry, scattered all over Nunavit, and then gathered into a shipping container and mixed with the remains of a burned-out pinball machine warehouse, it still wouldn't be as tough a project as a basket-case Citroën SM. For this reason, we're going with a pretty solid example, in this '73 (go here if the ad disappears), which is priced at only $5,250. It starts up and the hydropneumatic suspension rises, so you figure you can just do a little bodywork and you'll have a nice car, right? Sure thing… only first you'll have to do a little futzing about with the fuel system, because the car has "fuel delivery issues due to dirty fuel tank carbs could use a good cleaning." You know, nobody calls they call that Maserati V6 the "Mopar Slant Six Of Italy" because it's amazingly simple and dependable, so most likely it will work perfectly after just a few spritzes of carb cleaner down those Webers. How can you lose?

A Maserati engine is great, and that SM is a gorgeous machine… but you're looking for a full-on Italian Hell Project, and we don't mean some lame Biturbo or prole-grade Fiat Spider. It's got to be a Ferrari for your garage… no, wait- it's got to be many Ferraris, in your garage, down the driveway, and parked on the lawn. Did I say "parked?" Maybe that's not the right word here; let's say "dropped" instead, because that's what you'll do with these four Ferraris. The eBay price is $3,000, with an unspecified reserve, but they're on Craigslist for only $1,500. They're apparently 308s and 328s, and with the addition of a few incredibly costly parts here and there you'll be able to put together one perfect car! OK, scratch that- with the addition of four 1978 Pontiac Bonnevilles and some plywood body panels, you'll be able to slap together four fully drivable 301-powered machines, and they'll be registered as Ferraris! Thanks to A Benz Apart for the tip!

Remember the Lancia Zagato? Of course not, and you Europeans are probably totally confused about that name slapped on what's obviously some kind of Americanized Beta, but enough of them were sold on these shores that it's now possible to obtain two of them (go here if the ad disappears) for just $1,500. One of them doesn't run, due to a "sticky" clutch arm, while the other one runs just fine, other than a slight problem with the fuel pump ("Sometimes you have to jiggle the fuel pump fuse to get it going"), which shouldn't raise even the tiniest red flag among those with experience working on Italian cars. You got lots of extra parts- in fact, sufficient parts to completely fill the bed of a full-sized pickup truck- and that means you should have enough stuff to get at least one of these fine Italian thoroughbreds back into tip-top shape. Right?

Just because a Citroën SM has never lost a PCH Superpower Challenge, does that make this matchup unfair to Italy? What if the Romans had had that sort of defeatist attitude? Why, they would have allowed those barbarians from the north to conquer them in that case... oh, wait. Anyway, we figure two Lancias might have a hope against a car built by a shotgun marriage of Maserati and Citroën, under the administration of two of the best-organized and efficient organizations the world has ever seen: the French and Italian governments! So here we go! My fellow LeMons judge, Herr Lieberman, has found this 1973 Citroën SM for us, and check out that price! Pick your jaw up off the floor, because we're talking about an SM priced well below four figures, and the auction ends in just a few hours. Unless the reserve is set at some absurd height, this might be the cheapest SM in the country! It doesn't quite run, but it's really, really close; once you deal with the engine- which "may be stuck"- and find a new transmission- which is missing- and then hunt down some new hydropneumatic suspension spheres and some other parts, and then deal with all the stuff that goes wrong when an insanely complicated car sits for close to two decades (a car built by the French and Italian governments, remember), and then fix the rusted-through body panels… well, at that point you'll find that you're only capable of composing really unwieldy run-on sentences full of digressions and tangents and you'll need a good stiff shot of absinthe just to drag yourself out to the garage and face your future, each day, until the warm embrace of eagerly anticipated death enfolds you. OK, fine, we know the SM is going to crush the Zagatos, but vote anyway.

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This is the star of the show; the top seed. A seemingly indestructible 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 that runs from the law in a glorious 40-minute chase scene.
The local country radio reporter's ride, a Ford that might as well have "dorky" painted all over it.


A drop-top Ford with questionable structural rigidity that gets hit in the side so hard it splits neatly in half. Ridiculous, but funny.
The Belvedere rent-a-cop with a German Shepard. Attempts to chase down a tow-truck stealing a Challenger, and fails.


A burgundy Roller stolen in broad daylight from the airport drop-off curb; chauffeur left the key in it.
A Fleetwood serving as personal transportation for the ring-leader of the operation. An arranged assortment of sunglasses on the dash, and enough room for the whole crew to cruise around.


Stole a Challenger right off a dealership lot, then outran security even with the Challenger still attached. The star of the second best chase in the movie.
A poor little Type 3 that got flipped on its roof by Eleanor, starting a huge pileup. Cute car, humiliating role.


The Dodge carries the flag for all the cop cars in the movie. They're cool rides burdened by somewhat inept drivers.
One of the "girls" on the hit list, though it only appears on film for a moment. Not a hearse, but a custom station wagon.


License plate reads "OOO GAL." The Dodge was a stolen car wearing VIN tags from a wrecked donor; An identity thief before it was popular. Sadly, it had to go to the crusher once people started getting wise.
A new Plymouth out on a test drive gets smashed by a cop in pursuit of Eleanor.


Lyle Waggoner's Intermeccanica Italia swiped from spaced-out stoner cleaning it.
A stolen Corvette in a sizzling color. Not on film very long, but it leaves an impression.


The undercover cop that started the epic chase with Eleanor. It Went toe-to-toe with the Mustang, but couldn't quite keep up.
A nice bright green Dodge that suffered the fate of being crushed by a garbage truck rolling onto it.


An old sedan DeVille ridin' low. Occupants seemed to enjoy smokin' the herb so much that they drove the Caddy to self-destruction.
A Rolls limo big enough to carry a fully-assembled bicycle in the back seat with room to spare. Just wait for the chauffeur to leave the car unattended, insert the bike you rode up on, and drive away. Petty theft made high-class.


Don't get distracted by the girl, this DeTomaso is what you really want. She's just askin' for it, leaving the keys in the car like that.
This Jensen Interceptor is practically good enough for JFG, and it's apparently good enough to make the South American client's, list as well.


Fantastically obscure Manta Mirage stolen during a test drive. Salesman gets out to switch seats, thief slides behind the wheel and takes off.
The Maserati is another car on the list only appearing for a moment, but it's pure style.


A Cadillac filled with drugs, one of the few things to survive in the remake movie from 2000. How do you get rid of all that white powder? Burn it. Who cares if it's worth a million bucks on the street; these are responsible criminals.
The hopped-up Plymouth was on the screen for only a quick flash, but we're sure it's even quicker down the strip.


Parnelli Jones' Baja Bronco is the icon of off-road racing. But that didn't stop anyone from stealing it in the movie.
The Lamborghini is elegantly beautiful, but forgettable in this context.


Epic cool car and JFG resident, but it's too bad we can't see it's wacky suspension in action.
Who needs a high-tech anti-theft system? Just keep a tiger in your Cadillac.


Another limo left unattended and vulnerable. All the coolness factor of death with none of the emotional struggle.
Hard to say what exactly has been done to this Chevy Vega, but it sure ain't stock. Another one we'd like to see actually driving.


It looks plain on the outside because it's supposed to. There were two identical Fords used for scouting out all the cars on the to-be-stolen list before the day of the big hit. Equipped with walkie-talkies too!
Nothing says "Malaise Era" more than a Stutz. And this one was stolen right in front of a confused old lady. Classy.


[Screenshots are property of the movie's copyright holders; not Jalopnik]