Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

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jamescarruthers
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Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jamescarruthers »

I only had a brief time to visit Conservatoire Citroen but thought I would ask nicely if I could get closer to the C6 prototype. They kindly obliged but sadly it was locked so they couldn’t let me photograph the inside properly.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jamescarruthers »

Sadly, they didn’t have a C5 Mk. 1 or 2 which I think has became quite beautiful with age, especially in Mk. 1 estate form.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by white exec »

Quite some styling, the C6 prototype, James - especially front and rear. Almost an EV front!?
The seats look quite gorgeous.
Obviously much re-thought. My impression of a very short sit-in and drive in a C6 was of black, black claustrophobia, and nothing much in the way of welcoming comfort from the seats.

Agree about the C5 I Estate. Mk1's seem to be surviving in numbers, from a recent drive to Poitiers area.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jamescarruthers »

I agree, the C6 inside is kind of a let down. I would prefer the cream interior and it is in the back of my mind to change it over one day, if possible.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jml »

I remember sitting in this when I worked at Citroen UK’s HQ. I’d taken a couple of journalists to see both this and the C3 Lumiere. The C6 concept car was officially called the C6 Lignage.
If I remember correctly, it didn’t even have an engine (not unusual for a concept car then) and I remember asking one of the engineers what engine was in the C3 and he said ‘any old one, just so we can move it around’ !
I loved both of them :)
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by white exec »

...interesting! Was that Slough? What years were you there?
Just ask, as you must have some memories... :-k
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jml »

Hi Chris,

Sort of ! - I worked at Slough from 1979 until 2009 and yes, I have many memories of my time there. Ironically I have a rubbish memory but my wife tells me that the only thing I remember is about cars !

However the C3 Lumiere and C6 Lignage photo shoot was at a park around a lake on the outskirts of Paris. Somewhere I’ve got a photo of the two cars together and I think this shot was taken then.
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I loved working at Citroen, so much so that I commuted 220 miles/day for 25 years to get there ! This means that I have driven about 1 1/2 million miles in all sorts of Citroens !

Cheers

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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

The Slough building is now a temple (but I cannot recall for which religion). When it was still Citroen I saw the Citroen GT on display there.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jml »

Hi James,

You’re, of course, quite correct about the Bath Road HQ becoming a temple - it seemed like a very unusual change of use ! I actually started when the HQ was at Mill Street in Slough, which was the place Citroen moved to after leaving the factory (now Mars !) on the Trading Estate - exactly 40 years to the day after opening the factory in (IIRC) 1926.

What were you doing at Citroen ? I remember the first showing of the GT and took a few journalists over to Paris to drive it and then we brought it over to the UK for a photo shoot around London.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I was just driving past at the time. I look after EPoS equipment at shops, and was driving along the Bath Road either heading to a call of home from one.

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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by white exec »

The white XM 2.5 Exclusive we still have spent rather a lot of time at Slough, it seems. It was built in June '96, but went into storage (would that have been indoor, or outside, Julian?) there, before finally being offered to our local dealer (Freeborn/S.E.Thomas) in Dec.'98 (!), only to find that their regular customer had decided not to buy one that year. With just 1020 miles on the clock, we bought it, at nearly £10k off list. Even the dealer felt he needed to warn us, 'I must tell you that it is white...'. It was not a popular XM colour at the time.

You must have been there when XM was launched in '89, and maybe had to deal with the PSA-inflicted electrical problems on the early cars, and the later slow-up in sales.

You must also have lived through the phenominal success of BX, and later with Xantia too. What were the jobs you ended up doing, over all those years?

On our bookshelf here, we do have "Eighty Years of Citroen", which charts Citroen's UK presence, but some parts are a tad thin, notably on XM. Some interesting details, though, on batch-servicing of customers' SM's, which Slough felt it was best-placed to do.
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jml »

Drat, drat !

I’ve just spent 10 minutes writing a reply but my iPad has, somehow, just lost it all :( :(.

I’ll try again in the morning, if that’s ok.

Cheers

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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by white exec »

I keep reminding myself not to write anything lengthy on iPad, for just that reason.
And guess what, my post above fell victim to the same, so you've ended up with Vn.2 :gt:
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jamescarruthers »

jml wrote: 25 Aug 2021, 19:50 I remember sitting in this when I worked at Citroen UK’s HQ. I’d taken a couple of journalists to see both this and the C3 Lumiere. The C6 concept car was officially called the C6 Lignage.
If I remember correctly, it didn’t even have an engine (not unusual for a concept car then) and I remember asking one of the engineers what engine was in the C3 and he said ‘any old one, just so we can move it around’ !
I loved both of them :)
Image
I’m pretty sure this was a the Conservatoire last week. I seem to remember being drawn to its bronzey-yellow tinted windows (which look clear in your shot).
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Re: Citroen C6 Prototype at Conservatoire Citroën

Post by jml »

Hi Chris, - 2nd attempt !

We did have a pretty large indoor upstairs parking area and if your XM was at Slough for a long time thn here would be a strong chance that it was stored there. I used to visit that area quite often, so I may well have seen your car before !

I'll overlook your second paragraph for now but you may understand why after my next paragraph !

I spent my first 10 years there in After Sales, as I have an engineering background and degree, but then I was approached to see if I'd like to work in the Press Office, which i readily accepted. I spent 20 years there as Press Relations manager and the XM was my first International Press Launch, near Nimes. My job was almost exclusively dealing with journalists (including Clarkson, Hammond and May !) about our new cars and so I rarely got involved in any service issues and none of our Press XMs suffered any electrical problems, as far as I remember.

I mentioned that a parking area was upstairs and when we did the UK Press Launch of the ZX we invited all of the journalists to come to Slough for the launch (partly because we'd only recently moved to the Bath Road offices and it was an impressive site). When you're in those offices, the last thing you would expect is a car park area above you so the journalists were all quite surprised when we took them upstairs, across a 'bridge' into a darkened area and when the lights went on there were 20+ ZXs there for them to drive. We gave them our presentation whilst they were actually sitting in the cars - a bit like a drive in movie !

And yes, lived throughout the entire BX history. One of my first UK Press launches was the BX Turbo Diesel - what a great car. Have you seen the book on the BX, that has been recently released in the UK. http://www.citroenet.org.uk/resources/b ... -book.html
Modesty prevents me from telling you who wrote the Foreword ;) And, of course, I saw Xantia from start to end, obviously including the fabulous Activa - we involved the Police (profession, not band !) in the launch of that where we had a poice chase at Silverstone to exhibit the car's amazing cornering. We then went on to send the journalists on a road trip through most of the roundabouts in Milton Keynes !

I just may have some more information/booklets on the XM, if you're interested ?

Anyyway, that's probably more than enough from me.

Cheers

Julian


James, I don't recollect the Lumiere having bronze tinted windows, although it was a long time ago however maybe the Pluriel concept had them ??
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