From the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, this white Citroen SM sat parked on P Street in Georgetown in Washington, DC. It descended to earth with its hydro-pneumatic suspension depressurized, and did not move from this spot for at least 15 years, where it gathered a thickening coat of dirt over time. The car became a familiar landmark to thousands of people who lived in Washington, DC during the 1980s, an unusual and, to most, unidentifiable car parked in a highly visible location. When it arrived, Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and Archie Bunker was still on television. It suddenly disappeared a decade and a half later, when Bill Clinton was a young first-term President and when The X-Files was on its way to becoming a cultural phenomenon. “Spaceship” is a word often used to describe the Citroen SM, and in this case, it’s an especially appropriate metaphor.
How this SM became a permanent resident of this particular curbside was a mystery to me and many others for years, but thanks to the internet–a young medium when The X-Files debuted–the truth has finally emerged, partly.
A comment thread on Bring a Trailer in 2012 about the sale of a Citroen SM brought about an exchange between two former DC residents who remembered the car, one of whom had had a personal encounter with it. As a Georgetown University student in the late 1970s, he frequently saw the car on P Street and one afternoon started a conversation with the two men who owned it. They turned out to be students from the Middle East at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, and having two significant things in common, they trusted him enough to offer him a ride downtown. After seeing the car regularly, he eventually noticed that it had not moved for a while, and that continued to sit in the same place for what eventually became fifteen years, never once getting a parking ticket or ever being towed.
Further evidence of the SM’s long term residence in the same space comes in a post on a French automotive discussion board. A collection of photos from a trip around the United States in August 1994 included one of this street scene, from when the traveler found a Citroen SM on the street “avec stupéfaction.” It appears to be the only photographic evidence on the internet of the presence of this SM, and shows the car (still) with no parking tickets.
Washington, DC has been locally infamous at least since the 1980s for its exceptionally efficient parking enforcement service, known for ticketing cars within a few minutes of exceeding time limits, making the SM’s lack of any evident parking enforcement difficult to believe. The car did not have a diplomatic license plate that would have made its owner immune. As indicated on this sign that the SM faced throughout its long-term parking, there is a two hour daytime parking limit without a residential permit, and although it is possible that the owner constantly updated the car’s parking zone stickers while letting it sit for over a decade, it seems unlikely.
Photo from http://www.barrett-jackson.com/
How this car escaped parking tickets for so long is curious in itself, and but an even bigger mystery is what happened to it. It may have been simply towed away and scrapped, since over fifteen years of disuse and exposure to the elements almost certainly left it with rust and extensive repairs to major systems necessary, and neither Citroen hydropneumatic suspension systems nor Maserati engines are inexpensive to repair. Being a rare and exotic vehicle, of course, someone may have been willing to take on the task of restoring it. There are many white Citroen SMs on the web that might be this car; this one appeared in a Barrett-Jackson auction in 2004.
Photo from http://www.classicthrottleshop.com/
Washington, DC being a city with a large population of diplomats, journalists, and other internationally mobile professionals, there is a high likelihood that the car was shipped overseas for restoration by a new owner who discovered it while temporarily living in the US. This SM in Australia was a left-hand-drive car, converted to right-hand-drive during a restoration in 1996, the timing of which aligns with the disappearance of the car from Washington.
Photo from http://www.citroensmaustralia.com/
Australia seems to have become a popular destination for white Citroen SMs from the United States. This one came to Australia in 2000 and received a full restoration and conversion to right hand drive in 2000-2002. Its previous U.S. owner was a “high profile French chef in San Francisco,” so assuming that this story is true, it cannot be the car from Washington, DC.
Photo from http://johnedwinmason.typepad.com/jem_racing_photography/ecta-maxton-mile/
I hope that this car is the one. This SM with Moon discs and a very small cowl induction scoop competed in the land speed record competition at the Maxton Mile in North Carolina in 2010, one of the last held there before the event moved to the Airpark in Wilmington, Ohio. In place of the original Maserati V6, it had a Citroen two-liter four-cylinder, run with nitrous oxide–old-school power, with a basic design dating back to the 1930s, in one of the most technologically ambitious cars ever made. Just the ticket for a Citroen enthusiast on a budget who found an SM body (with its still-impressive Cd of 0.27) with its engine seized after fifteen years of being parked.
Moon discs look completely right on an SM to me, making an already slick shape even more so.
Or maybe this spaceship-like car really was a spaceship. As I mentioned at the beginning, Scully and Mulder were beginning their long-running search for aliens at the time that this car suddenly disappeared. They investigated strange coincidences, slowly but surely revealing a web of sinister conspiracies. Speaking of which, why did the DC government never give this car a parking ticket? Could it be mere coincidence that Scully and Mulder’s last initials happen to spell SM? With those two on its trail, perhaps this SM rose up on its long-dormant hydropneumatic landing gear and took off, never to be seen again. The truth is out there!
How this car escaped parking tickets for so long is curious in itself. . .
That question is explained by the photo of the sign, as they most likely have a parking permit which is on the registration sticker on the windshield.
Yeah, you can just make out the RPP sticker on the windshield. Driver side.
Of course, not sure when they went to those stickers. I would have though a bit after.
http://www.dcplates.com/Stickers.htm
Bigger mystery is how they avoided the street cleaning rules. I am pretty sure they are on P. So you have to move it once a week in the warmer months.
I don’t think the street cleaning rules came in to existence until 1995 or so. I remember them being introduced soon after I moved in to 1900 S Street NW starting in March of 1995.
Nice find,rare and exotic.There’s a space for one of these in my lottery winner’s garage.Burt Reynolds should be horsewhipped for driving one into a lake
Burt Reynolds has disappeared into obscurity, Karma?
He looks like and alien now- face lifted once too often.
In an ideal world I would definitely have a Citroen SM in my large garage full of cars, but everything that I have read indicates that in the real world it would be a nightmare experience. I once had a British car magazine (Classic & Sportscar?) that had an owner profile of a Citroen SM owner who was a judo instructor who held a Guinness World’s Record for some outlandish physical feat, I think for an unbelievable number of one-armed pushups. He was very happy with his SM but confessed that its engine had blown up on him once, while trying to race a Lamborghini, and he repaired it only thanks to money loaned to him by his brother in law, Neil Peart, the drummer of Rush. Definitely a car for the man or woman who lives an interesting life, but not really a practical choice for an ordinary person!
Its funny how you can get so used to an old derelict car that sits in a certain place. Then, suddenly one day, it’s gone. I have several of these in my life, particularly a rusty copper 59 Ford Galaxie sedan that sat in a driveway that I passed every day on my way to high school and home. I never saw it under its own power, or even moved. Then one day the turquoise 65 Galaxie that had formerly lived in the garage was sitting when the 59 had lived, and a 73 or 74 LTD was parked in the garage. I have always wondered what happened to that 59.
jpcavanaugh,
So true. The old widower guy across the street from my childhood NJ shore suburban home had an old Fiat convertible in the dirt driveway and an early 1970s blue with formerly black vinyl roof Ford 2dr Torino with in front of the house. The old man typically walked around town but drove the Fiat mostly if you can believe that. The Torino was shedding is vinyl roof and was mostly rust color on horizontal surfaces including the fender swoop tops.
The only time I saw the Torino move was when the oldster had to move it for street repaving soon after my family moved across the street. He had the dickens of a time starting it but eventually got it off the street. Then, after paving completed, it moved back into its spot. There the Torino stayed until about 8-9 years later when the old man passed away and his daughter inherited the house.
The car was sold off while I just started college away so I didn’t see it get towed or driven away. However, it left its shadow via the almost new pavement that had been under it including its tires location. The pavement shadow lasted for several years afterward exposed to the elements. The daughter and her family had a poured concrete driveway big enough for two cars installed which negated the need for on street parking.
tl:dr- old man leaves car parked in same spot on new pavement long enough for car to create a shadow as exposed street pavement eroded away
When I lived in La Jolla, I had a neighbor with a white Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow parked in front of his house. It was always kept washed and waxed, with shiny tire dressing gleaming. It never moved, which would have been difficult since it was missing its engine and radiator. We had alternate side street sweeping rules, but I never saw a ticket on the stationary RR. It annoyed me a bit, considering that parking enforcement used to chalk the tires of cars parked at my house until my hotblooded friend left a note on his car saying he’d break legs if he found chalk on his freshly-detailed car again. Oddly enough, we were never harassed again.
I remember seeing an SM in D.C back in the mid 1990’s when I went there, but from what I recall it wasn’t white, it was that more common brownish-champagne color that many SM’s seem to be, and it wasn’t parked on the street, it was in the driveway of a narrow “brownstone” style house that was down the street from our hotel. I know that I took a picture of it, but I have no idea where it is. That was the first real in the flesh SM I ever saw in person.
Carmine,
I remember seeing an SM in that same brownish color in DC at around the same time. I remember it quite well, since seeing two Citroen SMs at the same time anywhere in the United States is an unusual experience. I did not even know that the car was a Citroen back then, only that it was some sort of oddball French car.
The white SM actually did become a sort of landmark among people that I knew. I remember being given directions that included “go one block past that odd French car.”
When I worked at the Pimpmobile Factory in S. Norwalk, CT in the early ’70s, we had a constant stream of SMs coming through the shop to have sunroofs installed. The cars came from Citroen dealers in NY, CT and MA.
Intriguing tale – I just hope it was saved and not scrapped by a bureacrat.
Guy I know has a DS21. He was just about to get a parking ticket in Berkeley; he was quick to tell the meter maid it was his and he was going to move it. She replied if he would tell her what kind of car it was, she’d put the book away. No Citroen logo anywhere on the car; only the 2 chevrons on the trunk lid. SM has Citroen under the license plate, so they would have known what that is.
Another time in Berkeley, 12 year old kid asked him ‘did you make that car yourself?’.
Interesting. Here even with a residential permit there is technically a time limit that a vehicle can remain in the parked in same spot. It wouldn’t be enforced unless someone complained though.
Ah, that tasty dish the French call “Plaque d’immatriculation sous verre” (“License plate under glass”).
Seems to me we’ve discussed the sublime SM before, as I recall recalling the time around 30 years ago that I toyed with the idea of buying a gold-colored one of these for around five or six thou. It belonged to the Alfa dealership I was delivering parts for at the time. Wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d traded my hot-rod 240Z for a Citroen with a Maserati engine? Who knows, I might’ve moved up in society, and started dating sophisticated Frenchwomen. Then again, that $5000 might’ve proved no more than a mere downpayment on Dieu-only-knows how much more: potentially tens of thousands in repairs. The car could have turned out to be an exotic lemon that was immobile more often than mobile. (Although hopefully not quite as immobile as this automotive three-toed-sloth that vegetated in DC for 15 years.)
Actually, if I’d had a few grand to blow on an impractical car back then, a better investment than an SM would have been the Superbird that sat around a local gas station scaring the customers for a couple years. That too would was going for around $5000 at the time. Should’ve bought it and, after taking it around the block a couple of times, just stuck it in a storage locker with a sign reading “DO NOT OPEN BEFORE 2000 AD” on it.
My ’76 Peugeot 504D sat unmoved (unmovable) for exactly 3 months on W Street in DC in 1983 before being ticketed, towed and then presumably crushed. I guess some French cars are more equal than others.
Whenever I see very cool French cars of the 1970s, this song goes through my head…
aah, Oxygene! pure genius … and EXACTLY the kind of music you have to hear while speeding down l’autoroute de soleil at night, direction Cannes…
Perfect soundtrack for this car!
And here I was beginning to think the only moving Citroen in America is the one driven by the hero of “The Mentalist” TV show.
I once found a sad Citroen wagon rusting away behind a closed repair shop in a small town in rural Oklahoma. I had figured it’d be more likely to find a T-Rex skeleton.
In view of the challenges inherent in maintaining and repairing these peculiar automobiles, it might be said that “SM” stands for sadism-masochism.
Moby Dick!
A friend of mine lived in DC around that time with a white SM, but the one pictured isn’t it. There are more of them around than you’d expect…of course I see a couple all the time.
There’s an olive green one at the storage yard where I kept my Monza for a while. I wonder…
I first saw a gold one in Fleetwood Lancashire near Blackpool in the summer of 1980 parked ,next to a 3 litre Fiat Coupe.It’s a lot of things I dislike in a car,temperamental with a complex engine,expensive parts and I’m not a fan of FWD in big cars but I’ve wanted one since I first read about them in 1971.It still looks futuristic today.
Vernon, CT isn’t exactly the French car capital of America, either, but one of these sat for months with a ‘For Sale” sign on it back in the 90s. I passed it many times with a smile and a sigh until one day it vanished.
I remember that SM! It was the first non-LeCar French car I ever remember noticing as a kid, and it stuck around to when I thought I was a cool high schooler.
DC was a good town to grow up loving cars in in the 80s. The old-money/new-money/international influence in northwest combined with the working class/no-money life of southeast, so it wasn’t uncommon to see Rollers, Benzes, Saabs, Peugeots, Broughams new, Broughams old, and last-leg musclecars simultaneously.
I’ve driven two, stick and auto, and it is the nicest car i almost bought but didn’t!
Just off Washington circle , near m and 22nd nw, a bronze color one sat for about 5 years. Was in mid\ late 80,s. Presumably, it moved on occasion. Was usually always there when I scoped it out though.Spotted an early/ late 70’s era one at Chesterbrook shopping center, in Arlington VA about three weeks back.