CITROEN KARIN, 1980
When it comes to home motor shows there’s a realpressure – you want to wow the localcrowds and show the world that INSERT COUNTRY HERE is the one to beat when it comes to car design. At Paris or Frankfurt in particular there has always been a bit of healthy competition between native brands to pulloff the biggest showstopper.
Citroen certainly ground things to a halt with its Karin concept at the Paris show in 1980, but this was no bold vision of the future – rather, the French firm apparently didn’t have anything to show that year, so someone was sent to the design department to ask if they wouldn’t mind terribly coming up with something tout de suite. It didn’t even have to be driveable.
They didn’t so much cut corners as ditch curves, creating a trapezoidaleyesore that frightened smallchildren. Citroen’s influence was limited to lights you might have seen on an SM and hidden rear wheels, a company trademark for a little while there.
The chief designer was Trevor Fiore, a Brit who had worked for the likes of TVR and Jaguar before joining Citroen in 1980. He produced the Karin and Xenia concept cars, left Citroen in 1990 and was never really heard from again. Not in a sinister way, he was just low key.
The Karin has three seats, the driver in the middle and slightly offset passengers flanking on either side. Cheeky scamps at the time suggested that the French had designed the interior so that the driver’s wife could sit on one side and his mistress on the other.
The pared back dash is at the expense of a steering wheelheaving with buttons – there are buttons for everything on the Karin, buttons for functions that even now haven’t been invented. The fourth one up on the left can actually stop time. The door cards could be pulled out to revealsmallscreens, giving passengers something to do on long journeys.
We’ve not measured, but the Karin’s pyramid-topping roof could wellbe the smallest ever – same size as an A3 sheet, apparently, with acres of glass covering the shortfall. In fact, with that huge expanse of windows the cabin might have been better suited to growing tomatoes, or baking cupcakes.
Safe bets always get the nod over left field challengers, but it’s frankly a travesty the Karin never saw production. Citroen was only in it for the cheap thrillof a motor show buzz. The Bangles might have encouraged us allto walk like Egyptians in 1986, but sadly we’llnever know what it’s like to drive like one.