CITROËN GSA

1979-’86: old dash for more cash Nine years after its launch, Citroën’s revolutionary mid-sized GS finally gained the hatch that it had always needed as it morphed into the GSA. It also benefited from a heavily revamped dashboard, including the clever ‘satellite pods’ first seen on the then-new Visa a year earlier; or at least this was the case for LHD markets. For the UK, however, when the GSA was introduced in late ’79, the dash from the outgoing GS was retained, with British buyers having to wait a couple of years until the new ‘hi-tech’ instrumentation became available. By that time, loyal GS fans had got used to ‘normal’ gauges in RHD markets, because the magnified rotatingdrum speedometer found in left-hooker GSS since 1970 (and later CXS) never appeared in RHD form. Anorak fact Alfa took a leaf out of Citroën’s book by continuing with the previous 1974 Alfetta GT ‘centre’ dash panel for its revised 1980 GTV range in RHD markets for 18 months, before introducing the more ergonomic Continental ‘three dials’