Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "American Reacts to Old Citroën Suspension torture Testing VS other cars" video.
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@pistonburner6448 Yes, but the hydropneumatic system has a much smaller trade off between comfort and road holding than coil springs, because it's both progressive and self levelling, regardless of the priorities. But if you were to prioritize handling, the system is a bit less superior and probably won't give the same feel as coil springs anyway, so Citroen didn't. If you want the same comfort with coil springs, the road holding would be terrible, so terrible it would be uncomfortable.
I'd say it's pretty competent and enjoyable in general, and it takes very good specialized driver's cars like BMW's and Alfa's to be more competent, when the driver pushes it. Only some Mercedes. It's only 0.3 but the 1.9 really elevated the BX much higher, it came into it's own.
I just recognized his feeling, there you are in the mountains with your rather cheap 100hp saloon and you just don't see any cars being superior for that road. They might be, but it takes a skilled driver and race to show. You interpreted as that as it was better for mountain roads than a BMW, I don't think that was what he meant.
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@pistonburner6448 It's true purpose? You mean a narrowed down window of operation to track and good quality roads with no heavy load? That's fine, roads have hugely improved the past decades outside Belgium, but it seems to me the true purpose of a suspension system is to keep the tyres following the surface in accordance with the driver's steering and pedal input. Within that there are specilizations, like cornering fast on a smooth surface, or the ability to both be comfortable and handle very rough surfaces, like the Range Rover. Please automakers, be true to your chosen purpose, your window you narrowed down to excell within, be the most BMW you can be, I appreciate that, not BMW building SUV's. I don't believe BMW should have switched to hydropneumatic suspension ever in history.
It's not the party trick that made the hydropneumatic system superior, that was just something that came with concept, which had both the progressive nature of the suspension and the self levelling nature. That simply made for less trade off between road holding and stability vs comfort. I think Mercedes was able to tune a suspension and innovate on geometry too, and you see the result when Germans test it against a far more comfortable Citroen in the video abover. Mercedes btw that copied the Citroen system for it's top model above and almost twice expensive as the regular top model, the 450 SEL 6.9, often called the best car in the world, a chauffeur's limo and a driver's car in one. Air suspension never matched hydropneumatic suspension, or came close, Mercedes did a good job on the 600 and 300 SEL 6.3, but switched to the superior system for their newest top car. Mercedes and Citroen engineers were very much alike, they are innovative, stubborn and know what's best.
What we see now is after decades of allmost all automotive engineers working to improve coil springs and almost non on the hydropneumatic, coil springs have massively improved. Dampers being electronically controlled, magnet powered, using gas properties like a hydropneumatic system, whatever, I'm not into the details I just know that there is a lot great engineering involved. What we have here is a competition between an excellent concept that worked great from the start because it was brilliant and simple, and we have lots of great engineers tinkering with a concept that started as an improvement on the leaf spring, according to most except Chevrolet. A break even point, a tipping point, was never unexpected in those circumstances and I believe it's behind us by now. But certainly not around 1990, the hydropneumatic suspension made the BX 1.9 perform in the mountains like cars much sportier or powerful and expensive.
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@clivewilliams3661 I don't agree, those cars were less roomy and had bigger engines, often a 1.8 or even a 2.0. But the GS was designed for the compact Biroter and couldn't fit a big 4. The Birotor was defenitely in a class above those, but failed. Those also weren't four door, which quite essential for a slighter higher class of car.
Just like Citroen failed to get a flat 6 in the DS, the CX was also designed with the much compacter Wankel engine in mind.
Because the BX was the successor to the GS it didn't make a huge jump in engine size because customer used to buy successors of what they had back then. I don't remember if the 1.9 in the BX was planned for the introduction, but I wouldn't be surprised.
It's hard to break free from a history of underpowerment through failed projects. While they also had to size up their class range a bit to better compete with the Germans. They only succeeded with the Xantia, that was proper Vectra, Sierra/Mondeo, Passat, Audi 90 class, the 2 liter 4 door. But they needed the ZX too to not loose market share of the BX successor.
So the failure of 2 engines for 3 models at the top end, kept Citroen down in class for very long because that was passed down the generations. And when their top car finally got a V6, it wasn't really a top V6.
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@clivewilliams3661 You forget about the Opel Ascona/Vectra, Ford Taunus/Sierra, VW Passat class. The French came from a slightly smaller class, true, but that's where they went. That's where the model under the DS/CX/XM should have been.
This is an important family class but also a salesmen, lower executive class and if you have a client or collegue over 30 to give a ride you want them get in with some dignity, so the 4door saloon is quite essential to that class. It is also a typical 2 litre class, it doesn't go down to 1.2 litre, maybe 1.8. Because it was a little bit bigger, much roomer and far more comfortable, Citroen could have been in that class in it's own compact lightweight way.
I think we can agree you want a range of models without large gaps that competes against ranges of models across borders. Especially if you simply build the better cars in case of Citroen. Without the Birotor, Citroen had a huge gap towards the DS/CX and even a gap towards the direct French smaller competition on engine size of about 0.5 liter. That was even bigger to the German/British 4door class around 2.0 litre which it could have aspired to with a much, much bigger engine.
It took until the Xantia, that needed the ZX not to leave another gap beneath, to close that gap entirely.
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