Putting a late Citroen XM V6 through its paces, courtesy of the Citroen Car Club/Club XM Forum. The XM features computer-controlled, hydraulic suspension, Bertone styling and, in this case, a glorious V6. Turn up your speakers.
As a 10year old boy i fell instantly in love with the XM when i saw it the first time in a car magazine, it looked so futuristic back then. It became my favourite car for years, that happened never again
I just parked my 2.5TD in the winter garage, really a sad day, waiting for that beautiful moment to get it back on the road in 2019. This is my 4th XM and i’ve driven all types, all other sorts of Citroens including 2 SMs. While i agree with the remarks on the styling of Mk1 being superior over Mk2 I can now safely say that the joy of a leather interior, automatic climate control, cruise control, sun roof, bluetooth radio, airbags in the seats is giving me more driving pleasure than any of the earlier XMs. I appreciate my winter car, a volvo V70, but i am totally and completely and for the rest of my life in love with this car. Probably will convert it to electric one day. Quite feasible you know.
I have a D12 91' and to be honest I prefer the pre-facelift for two reasons: the dashboard and the way the sport mode works. I'm glad there are people that appreciate these underestimated and misunderstood cars.
Ireland Calling !...I called X one day.( who serviced my.. Xsara )...a small rural garage business in Ireland. .He had trained as a Citroen mechanic. I said i was interested in buying an XM. His reply was .." You will be in the garage every day..it's the worst Citroen ever produced " I succumbed to .." Temptation " ( ignoring specialist advice ) and the XM arrived at my door. What a Machine !.. OK ..2 Litre..It was some driving experierience... Thanks Citroen, for the memories..
Neighbour had a green estate and a lady who used to deliver Ferraris in the 60s also owned an XM estate also in metallic green. I loved them. My friends dad owned a BX and on every trip I'd get out and watch the suspension rise. My primary school art teacher owned a 2cv that got me into art and Citroens. They have to be well engineered. Gabriel Voisin was the most creative influence allowing Andre Lefebvre to design and develop the Voisin road going protorypes look up the 1923 voisin c6 laboratoire. That creative DNA filtered in to Citroen.
It's thanks to Fiat that Lancia is still in existence. They were on the bones of their arse due to decades of building stuff that was gorgeous but nobody could afford, until Fiat stepped in in 1967 and bought them for 1 lira. Same goes for Alfa Romeo, another romantic notion that would have disappeared unless Fiat hadn't bailed them out.
@@edgarbeat275 though you forget that the first Voisin was in fact a design from Andre Citroen which he himself thought would not suit Citroen's more middle class perception at the time. This is the main reason why Voisins and Citroens of the interbellum have so much in common, aside from the two men actually having been close friends
Some influences there from Mors 're ing cars. I also th8nk Voisin was an early adopter of front brakes after Gabriel drove a prototype rear brake car and found the back axel was put on the wrong way round. Being Gabriel he drove the car like that to test braking on the front 😀
For "an old 90s car", the styling has held up well. The interior looks cavernous in this video, and those seats look so comfortable! I only caught a glimpse of the back seat area, but judging by the distance between the rear door hinges and the back of the front seat headrests, it looks like there's a generous amount of rear seat legroom. Both Citroen and Peugeot bailed out of the US market decades ago, so the only way we get to see one on this side of the Atlantic is through videos like this one. Thanks for all your efforts in creating them.
Hi Ian, this is a nice video i watched a hundred times while I was waiting to put my latest XM back on the road. It has the same coulor and a '99th V6 Pallas with manual transmission. After sitting around for 2.5 years, it' ll be ready to rock next week! beside my daily Xantia X1 Break. Its my third XM, started with a 2.1L turbo D12 in 2003 for 10yrs followed by a Pallas 98th V6. Let's keep this old hydropneumatics up and running, cause they are ones of the best cars ever made. And the XM a true statement at its time and still. and you named it....a marvelous piece of design. For me a real great Citroën. Keep on vlogging and Cheers from the River Rhein
i had 3 of them (a 1989 diesel, a 2.1 td and a 2.5 td) loved to ride them..had the 2.1 tuned from 110 to 125 bhp, and the 2.5 i could change (with a simple button) from 130 to 155 bhp. great design (at least I liked it), great comfort, made a bit of temperature, but not really a problem (except for my nerves ;-) ), plenty of room in it...ideal for cruising on long journeys...
Yes Ian !, That's the later 3.0 24 valve V6 Citroen XM you were driving ! - Fantastic and unique looking car ! - That 24 valve V6 makes all the difference ! vocally !! as the earlier pre 1993 3.0 XM's only had 12 valve V6 engines and only 170 brake horse power compared to the later 24 valve V6's which if I remember rightly were 190 to 198 brake horse power depending on whether the car had a manual or automatic transmission. These are now getting as rare as hen's teeth on UK roads ! - Best grab one whilst you still can !!
I am very, very fond of my Series 2, V6 XM. It has done nearly three times as many miles as David's (the one in the video) but it is still a fabulously comfortable cruiser. I share the gripe about the sport button being hidden from sight, but perhaps that helps me regularly return more than 30mpg from a big, old, automatic, 3 litre V6. Thanks for the upload, Ian. I have been driving a diesel Polo for the last week and I am looking forward to driving a proper car tomorrow - just for fun. :-)
I drove a BX 19TRS automatic. That was a very smooth car with a very smooth (Peugeot) engine. And it was pretty reliable too. One of the few non asian cars I had. I still miss the hydropneumatic suspension!! Bring that back!
Cracking review, great work, what a glorious noise : ), i have a Phase 1 2.0 Turbo manual, love it. Wish it was a V6 though, better performance and more MPG to boot.
Wow,didn't expect that kind of pull from that,lovely smooth car,Would have liked a more in depth showing around the car and under the bonnet see that V6.
I had Xantia 1.9 turbo diesal as you say the XM was special this was my dream car, love the style. Hyperactive suspension as well........want one. It is a brilliant car.
Anyone who remembers Inspecteur Magrait, will love Citroens. I don't have that much experience driving them but I do remember pulling a caravan behind a BX on a blustery M6. There where a few other caravans around and they were weaving nastily. Not the one behind the BX though, dead steady. Impressive enough to ignore the rather feeble engine.
I learnt to drive in my parents 1978 Citroen CX....... I assumed all cars had a brake pedal which was like a switch,indicators that were a switch and a Speedo and rev counter that was like a spirit levels bubble. and that every car lifted it's wheel to aid a punctured tyre swap. It sprang a leak of its LHM fluid on Gray's Inn road in Holborn in rush hour,NOW THAT WAS A FUN DRIVE TO EDGWARE.
The XM is a wonderful car. A very good friend of mine has 2 of them. The last C6 the last great big Citroen was the only big Citroen that wasn't available as an estate.
Fantastic video mate, no doubt about it, it's a modern classic that you don't see on the road hardly these days, superb ride quality from what I can remember but not exactly a bmw beater unfortunately lol, by the time you've found sport mode on the left hand side, you might as well turn it off again lol. on the other hand, it's still a powerful and unusual car that I'm sure will only apriciate with time. Many thanks for the video man! Take it easy
Completely agree with you Ian, the CXs biggest failing was not having a bigger engine option. I love these XMs though. The one you’re driving here would suit the earlier funky alloys.
Bought an 02 plate C5 in 2012 with 50k miles for £1k. Never had a mechanical problem and it used to go through MoTs with next to no work needed, bills were usually £50 - £150. It was an excellent motorway car. Replaced it with a C4 this year as needed an auto, as my wife passed her test in an auto. Very sad to see the C5 go.
Lovely looking car and a decent engine too. I always smile when I see one. Not sure it was ever a BMW beater though, it was a different type of car altogether, and its lack of a replacement probably points to its relative market success.
Would love a XM V6, C6 3.0 V6 hdi or petrol or Peugeot 605 V6. That engine sounds beautiful. If only they had rwd and the C6 wasn't achingly expensive to maintain and despite the 2.7 sharing the engine with an S-Type, was considerably more expensive to tax . Love the videos, thanks for posting
I don't really get why they replaced the dashboard with a Peugeot-ish dash in Series 2... I mean... sure, I get that they had to get rid of the one-spoke steering wheel because of the airbag, but the dash was just not needed imo. It does not fit the overall design-language of the XM at all. The old dash also gave a better feel of space. Feels like it was rushed because Citroen was desperate to make the XM S2 look "modern".
+h8u4ever I own (and in fact love) an XM V6 24V Pallas from 1993. Fortunately it has a one-spoke wheel through which you can see - and indeed operate - the switches to the left and right of it. There is quite some space inside the broad spoke of this wheel. Surely a moderate restyling of the center would have been enough to make room for an airbag. I once had a Y4- (aka. series 2) XM and, personally, I do not like the new steering wheel and the plastic of the newer dashboard does indeed feel cheap compared to the original edgy dashboard of the Y3-version.
The new dashboard has one advantage though: Type 1 was a pig to disassemble. Type 2 is a lot better. For 1 year there actually was a version with the old steering wheel but already the new dashboard. I gues they had to change the steering wheel to get a standard type airbag installed. Specially developing one to fit in a XM type steering wheel would have been much more expensive.
Yep, the first version fits better to the overall design but the second one is actually not that bad when you get used to it. The real pity is however that the first production version was already very conventional. Other designs concepts where much more adventurous, so more in the CX direction. Now that would have been an entirely different matter again. I have even thought about transplanting a CX series 2 interior into my XM. One could of course still do it but it would mean a lot of work without hardly anybody notiocing it.
It's possible to retrofit a S1 dashboard in a S2 car. I own a lovely conversion of the later ES9 V6 from 2000 on a W plate, but done up inside and out to look like a S1 car.
+Graham Clayton That's true, but only on the better-spec models. My humble SX lacks such luxury - though it makes it easier to convert it into a 'van' when lugging stuff around.
Ah, you poor soul. Still, on itself it is not much more then another extra gimmick. For me the XM is more about the total package. Even the "low spec" versions carry the same spirit. So don't be sad!
actually, this feature was there because in france, we loved having an hatchback, but in germany, they prefered a trunk. So citroen said, why don't put a windows between. It has still the hatchback style, but with the advantage of a trunk. Just, my english might not be perfect on this one, but I didn't know the translation for the word "malle" ( it's french ), so, sorry if my sentence doesn't mean anything :/
As far as I know "car trunk" is perfect english although the americans call it a car booth if I am correct. Still that extra window is a bit of decadence, isn't it? OK, if you have the Queen Of Sheba or Cleopatra in the backset you might not be able to do without it but car doors do also not have a double shielding. Of coursee XM's are very near to real spacehsips but one still does not need an airlock! :-)
I had four XM's over the years, loved them all, and wish that I'd kept one. They have that certain something and, as noted here, not the level of quirkiness of the CX etc.....but something very very different. I never had a V6 though, and they are getting thin on the ground....I must get my finger out !! Great video clip fro an obvious XM enthusiast.
@@HubNut quite ! i have de 12V 167 hp, but the torque of it is tremendous, as is the response ! i can take a 90° curve in 4th gear with 30 km/h without choking the motor !
Excellent car, I had several, but the CXs we had - his and hers! 2500 autos were just the best but you are right they needed 6 cylinder engines and more than three speed autos, but they really made you look down on BMWs
my dad was a real citroen lover all his life i grew up with DS ( a real one not that modern piss trap ) then a safari as the family car then he went with a xantia after he spent some years with just vans then he got this and it was lovely i would always find an excuse to lend it off him and long journeys were easy and you never got tired , dont get me wrong its so comfy you could just sleep in it !!! so the ac or thw widnows were always open to prevent drifting off in to the land of nod and ultimately the dead zone !!! he never got round to the last one with the hydro static suspension and he is driving a alfa i got him now because it has a semi auto box and his gammy leg doesn't have to clutch ironically alfa was my go to motor when i was a young man and i had a nice cloverleaf for a good few years with no problems as my uncle was an alfa head !!
I think it's great that you go on and on about this Citroen XM. Your reporting is truly unbiased and you give plenty of reasons why this car stands out in the crowd. So I have some questions. What year did the series 2 cars come out with the restyled dashboard?? What year was the XM killed off? and if the car has the Hydropneumatic suspension why does it have Mcpherson struts?? I thought the nitrogen spheres control the ride height and control. Mcpherson struts are used on convential suspension systems.
XM ran from 1988 to 2000 I think. Series 2 introduced 94 maybe? I'd need to look it up. The strut suspension has a sphere on the top, rather than a coil spring within. Still pivots like a MacPherson strut. Not as good as the original double wishbone suspension Citroen used on DS to CX.
Series two ran from July 1994. The last ones were sold off in the beginning of 2000. The suspension design (double wishbone vs. McPherson) does not define whether it is a hydractive suspension or a conventional suspension.
I have a xantia v6 and it shocked me. the build quality was so good! . the engine sounds wonderful. its a real pleasure to drive . until you try and get spares for it! . its a wonderful money pit though .
The engine on my V6 SEi sounded like a typewriter. The only time it would quieten down is when it's been crawling along for ages in slow moving traffic. It was plagued with hydraulic leaks nearly every other week. But even with all that, it was a nice drive, but nowhere near as good as my CX GTi Turbo 2 - the downside of the CX being the ventilation when the XM had exceptional ventilation.
...finally got an xm from 1996...92.000 km...V6 12 with 167 bhp, enough for cruising...and an enormous torque (for a no-turbo) - after 40 years of driving hydraulics, you cant just drive a skoda, even if it's a "superb" car...i simply missed that feeling, now i can cruise again. in leather seats...or better: fauteuils ! :-) i forgot: it's got DIRAVI steering!! have to get accustomed to that.. ;-)
Great video. Just a remark on what you said: the V6 Xantia wasn't meant to replace the XM. In fact, both the XM and the Xantia were replaced by the C5 in 2000-2001. I'm sure driving an XM is an even better experience than driving a Xantia but I wouldn't mind driving a V6 Xantia with an automatic gearbox. :-)
@@HubNut Yes, about a year before and, of course, they continued to sell Xantias while stocks lasted. Initially I was a bit dissapointed to see the XM would be replaced by a smaller car but things got a bit better in 2004 when Citroën produced the phase 2 1st generation C5, which was a bit longer.
I agree I've owned 2 xm's and my mk1 2 litre 4 cyl was better than my mk 2 v6 gotta love a single spoke steering wheel. Even the interior lights came on and off with a dimmer.
Big Car did a review on this car. I love it. It is the high water mark of a Classic just like the Saab 900 and 9000 were the highwater mark of a Classic. I just enjoy Citroens and wish they were told here in tge States.
I used to have an XM, a three litre V6 five speed manual Executive. Had the engine check light coming on every hundred miles, with no fault recorded, which was annoying. Occasional non starting fault which may have been a relay or dirty connection. It was a nice car but the full effect of the immense engineering refinement really only became obvious at high speed. Lovely bodywork, large comfy seats, well engineered. There was a 2.7 litre with 4 valve heads available too, not sure if it was available here in the UK.
I was lucky enough to get hold of an XM V6 with the ES9 engine (like the one you're driving) only it has been lovingly converted to series 1 bodywork and interior (much nicer and squarer, more in keeping with the exterior) and has been fitted with a 5 speed manual from the 406 coupé (which also shared this engine). I'm fitting an android head unit with a rear camera, DAB radio, sat nav and full internet which is double DIN sized (7" touch screen) and can be hidden very discreetly behind the wooden radio cover to maintain stock appearance. I'll also be intalling some fairly extensive sound deadening and hopefully having the car resprayed at some point this year. My other XM (1993 2.1 diesel) is a dark grey metallic which I like very much so I'll probably go with something similar. It's currently a dark (not very metallic) blue, which doesn't do wonders for the car's lines. It'll be having its hydraulics dealt with next week but let me know if you fancy driving it for a video at some point. I'm based near Brighton. Cheers!
I shied away from the XM at the time as I hated what Peugeot had done to the brand but it did seem like some sort of return to form for Citroën. When I had my CX, which I adored, I always used to say, “If only this had a lightweight V6 (something like the VW Narrow Angle from their R32) and a Steptronic gearbox, it would be the second best car on the planet. I owned a Renault R30TS back in 1981 which had the Douvrin V6 which possibly ought to have found it’s way into the CX had things been different. Natiurally, the DS was still my fantasy car!
An SM and an XM V6 would make a very nice two-car garage, IMO. I remember going with my father to see the XM at the local dealer shortly after they came out. It was quite a premium product in its day. We lived in NZ at the time, and I recall the price being more than NZ$90K all those years ago. I like the C6, but the interior also has hard plastics along with premium touches, and the petrol versions are rare and expensive, and I don't particularly want a diesel. So, for me, a nice one of these woud have a lot going for it. Sadly, ULEZ means I can't realistically even consider one of these as my daily driver. And by the time they're 40yo, a nice one will likely be basically impossible to find. It's almost at that stage now. And it's unlikely that someone would spend what you'd need to in order to do a decent resto. Very sad. But thanks for reminding me of a fond memory of a little outing with my Dad, now sadly deceased. He liked something a bit different, as I do. He never owned a Citroen and I never have, either, but maybe one day I'll own one.
i finally put an Y3 rear spoiler on my Y4 V6...now it looks like a proper car !! 🙂 p.s. mine has a stainless steel exhaust pipe - still another sound as yours, there..
Given the impression of acceleration in your video, I assume your XM is a V6 24V model. It sould then be a 190 hp engine with automatic transmission. They never made an automatic transmission for the older 200 hp engine, did they? It's a bit odd to have a Pallas top model without even the option to add an automatic transmission. But that's the way my 1993 XM Pallas was built. And I love it that way!
+SechsFlügel It is the later V6 24v - ES9 engine. Earlier 24v was, as you say, manual only. I've not driven a PRV 24v, though I have driven a 12v manual. Prefer the ES9.
Ian. Try a PRV v6 24v manual version then. In mk. 1 models. They are 200bhp and manual.. The esj v6 0 to 60 is rated 9.3 seconds where the prv v6 24v is 7.5seconds..
***** It was nice. I'll have to stick with my turbo diesel for now. Bit annoyed with my slight editing glitch. Only spotted it once it had been uploaded - which took hours.
ClassicHub It didn't ruin the video and audio experience. Once had a similar yearning for a Rover 827 after a test drive. Also has a pleasant audio soundtrack and despite Rover's slightly unruly suspension design, it handled rather well. Still prefer the XM V6 though. It's just so 'space age'.
Always thought the XM was a great looking car although it does now look a bit dated. The reason it couldn't take on BMW was because as you mentioned in your report some of the interior trim felt cheap and was quite fragile. That said I used to love the magic carpet ride and in the few that I drove had seats like arm chairs.
Always fancied one of those. However, at the moment I can't even afford to fix my mountain bike (such as it is) and any car remains some way off on the priority list...
Great video , I have a friend that has an XM 2.0 ltr turbo break ih his shed I can buy it plus two spare XMs for NZ$6000.00 ummm where to put them my garage has 3 cars in it already I think my non working GS may have to go, I have come to like the XM, I had a 16v 2.0 ltr injected Zantai manual had the top HP engine in it I though that was pretty good car, great mpg and it sat on the road however the XM looks interesting, I did have a CX a 1983 2.4 injected but the motor was seized so it was given to some younger guys to sort out and yes I often wondered what a V6 would have been like in the CX, I am sure it would have been a real hit
+DolleHengst Ik heb nu een V6, en heb 2 ct turbos gehad, maar de V6 is toch wel geweldig hoor, net even dat stukje sneller, stiller, en lawaaig op een mooie manier als je het wilt, ik haal met euro 98 de 1 op 11.4..
In spite of the offical legend the XM was not really designed by Bertone. It's actually a reinterpretation of aspects designed by Citroen / PSA styling centres with a bit of a Bertone sauce on top, be it a very nice sauce indeed. Proof can be found in 60 Ans de style et de prototypes by Roger Guyot / Christophe Bonnard. It proves the famous sketch in the airpalne must have only been the frist of such reinterpretations and not the original inspired design Citroen's marketing department led us to believe. It's still nice to be able to say that I drive a Bertone styled car though.
I love them though. I owned 4 cars in my life. 1 BX14 and 3 XM's. There still is no other affordabe car I'dd rather own. My dreamcar is the DS but alas one cannot call those affordable with any stretch of the imagination.
Exactly, my remark is more about who actually produced that interpretation. The CX and SM are known as purely Robert Opron led designs but the XM is much more a multi-group effort (several Citroen teams + Bertone). Normally that tends to lead to uninspired designs but this time it actually seems to have helped. Bertones contribution was to combine all the exisiting idea's into a consequent and strong package. Very important but not enough to claim the whole design.
The book I quoted in my first remark seems to prove that it is not actually Bertone in shape. All elements where already in place in 1984 under Citroen project V80, directed by Jean Giret. Google it and you'll find the pictures. Bertone was however a very good place to give it that Je ne sais quoi which the C6 misses so dearly (being much more ''german").
I own the same book. Found it years later in a bit rough state in a now defunct London bookstore. Nowadays the streets suddenly seem to be paved by copies though. A nice enough book but very much coloured by the author(s) being embedded. Although my french isn't that good the impression I get is of an expanded sales brochure. Sorry to be the wise guy again but the wankel citroen actually was a later version of the GS, called Birotor. No CX evere "wankeled". My experiences with the 3 XM's I owned have overall been very positive. They do not rust, the PSA 4-cylinders seem to be almost indestructible and topping up the suspension system is less expensive than to change worn out conventional shocks. It's more a matter of wanting to "over"-invest in a car with such a low remaining sales value. The only true down side is the rather low quality of the non-essential electic stuff. So the best XM is a low spec 4-cylinder one. Then it can overall actually be cheaper to own and run then a lot of smaller cars.
