Concept Car of the Week: Citroën Xenia (1981)

Trevor Fiore is one of the most enigmatic names in automotive design history. A native of England, he was born Trevor Frost in 1937. In the 1950s he enrolled as an apprentice mechanic at Standard Triumph, while taking art and illustration classes. He would soon graduate to Standard’s design studios.

Two by Trevor: The DeTomaso Vallelunga (top) and the TVR Trident (bottom)

As the 1960s dawned, the sleek designs coming out of Italy fascinated Frost, and he traveled there to look for work, using his mother’s maiden name, Fiore, to capitalise on his Italian heritage. He found a job at Carrozzeria Fissore, designing for a number of different smaller marques, including TVR and DeTomaso. He also worked on Fissore’s designs for DKW and Auto Union. Those were good years for Fissore, with about 200 people employed at their plant in Turin, and Trevor Frost – now Fiore – had plenty of design work on the boards.

Separated at birth? Probably. And Fiore probably designed both cars

But by the late 1960s various ventures and contracts were winding down for Fissore, and the company found a saviour in work for the Swiss specialty automaker Monteverdi. Fissore began manufacturing Monteverdi’s High Speed 375 L after Carrozzeria Frua was found to be lacking in the capacity and resources to produce the car. The move to Fissore also necessitated a new design due to a copyright dispute (one of many involving the mercurial Peter Monteverdi). Trevor Fiore may have worked on the High Speed redesign, but it is more certain he worked on the Monteverdi Hai which, again, Monteverdi claimed as his own.

Trevor Fiore holding a model of the Monteverdi Hai. Fiore claimed the design, Monteverdi said it was his own

It appears that Monteverdi saw early designs for the Renault Alpine A310, also credited to Fiore. What Fiore was doing designing the A310 is still a matter of speculation, as Fissore never had a formal relationship with Renault – although it did do some work with Alpine (for a speculative, though extremely well-researched, account of the birth of the Alpine A310 we recommend this article).

A sketch from the drawing board of Trevor Fiore. Extremely gifted in both design and rendering, his skills allowed him to work independently in the 1960s and 1970s

Trevor Fiore would leave Fissore after nearly a decade of work, no doubt tired of Peter Monteverdi’s overbearing influence, and establish his own design studio. The move was an acknowledgement of the independent work he had been doing quietly for years. He worked with a number of manufacturers, and with Carrozzeria Coggiola, which was also involved in the development of the Renault Alpine A310

In 1980, Fiore was retained by Citroën, first as a consultant, and then full time, as their Director of Design – their first since Robert Opron, who had been unceremoniously dismissed during the bankruptcy crisis of 1975. With no new production models to present at the upcoming Paris Motor Show, Fiore immediately embarked on a project to present a dramatic concept car for the Citroën stand.

The Citroën Karin – no wedge car had ever looked like this

And dramatic it was. A sleek, wedgy coupe with a massive glasshouse, the car greeting attendees was unlike any Citroën before or since. It was named Karin, a variation on the Italian ‘cara’ or ‘carina’, meaning ‘dear’ or ‘darling’.

The Citroën Karin – a Car? A Pyramid? The last word in tumblehome? All of the above

The front looked like the SM, and a bit like the A310, at least around the lights. The side elevation looked a little stumpy as the Karin was not a long car, though very wide.

But seen from almost any angle – front or rear three-quarter for instance – the Karin was a radical statement due to its pyramidal form and trapezoidal graphic shapes. As a concept, it was totally arresting, if not even remotely practical due to its extreme angles.

The unusual three-seat arrangement of the Karin

Stepping through the butterfly doors and into the Karin’s cabin one immediately noticed the unusual seating arrangement. The seating was three across, with the passenger seats set back from the central driving seat. Trevor Fiore joked that the Karin’s unusual seating configuration “allowed for a man to travel with his wife in one seat and his mistress in the other.”

Ahem…

Whatever one’s polyamorous domestic arrangements, the three occupants of the Karin certainly had a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. The driver looked out across the vast windscreen and to a very compact IP which was centered around the steering wheel. Controls were clustered around the steering, most within reach of the stretch of a finger. It was a science fiction version of some of the technologies seen on the CX. The passengers each had little computers which popped out of the sides of the doors. The whole tech-centric composition of the interior seemed to anticipate today’s proliferation of screens in automotive interiors – a mixed blessing indeed.

The IP of the Karin centered around the steering wheel – everything within the reach of a fingertip

The Karin was introduced to the public at the Paris show and was a darling of the press due to its science-fiction design. The Citroën stand was always crowded with onlookers from the public, press and of course rival manufacturers. Opinions of the design varied. Some though it was absolutely hideous, others thought it was an overdue ‘reboot’ of Citroën design. Almost everyone thought it would be a cool spaceship.

The Karin and its successor, the Xenia – dramatic geometry and graphics

The following year, Citroën introduced another concept car, the Xenia. Described by Fiore as “a GT for the year 2000”, and also as a “break monocorps”, the Xenia was a sleek wedgy monoform, intended to echo the Karin design aesthetic but in a more practical configuration.

An early clay model of the Xenia design. Simple massing and graphics

The concept was developed in two phases, the first a clay model of the form of the car with a wedge attached to a broad rectangular monospace volume. There is a long wheelbase in the Xenia’s design, and a sense that the ‘box’ of the design is elongated, hence Fiore’s suggestion that the Xenia might be a future GT – one that combines the sportiness of a shooting break with the practicality of a ‘monocorps’ or monoform body.

The Xenia sported a more conventional layout, but retained the science-fiction IP

The second phase was a finished interior inserted into a full-scale model. The design was more practical than the radical Karin. Gone were any racy polyamorous overtones – a conventional four-seat arrangement was proposed.

The electronic theatrics at the IP continued however, with another ‘at-your-fingertips’ arrangement of controls around the steering wheel and along the center console.

Fingertip controls aplenty in the Xenia. If you loved keypads, this was your car

The Karin and the Xenia were, alas, destined to remain concepts. But Citroën would adopt a more geometric design language with the BX, based on a Marcello Gandini/Bertone design for the Volvo Tundra, a 1979 concept that the Swedish marque rejected. It is unknown if Fiore was instrumental in getting the Bertone design adopted by Citroën, but the Tundra and the Xenia certainly look similar,

The Volvo Tundra, a concept which would influence the design of the Citroen BX. More than a passing resemblance to the Xenia, too

As for Fiore himself, he would soon leave Citroën and drop out of sight. He was associated with Bugatti in the early 1990s, but then disappeared again until making some news when some of his exquisite drawings came up for sale in 2007. That auction was initially blocked by Fiore, but the conflict was ultimately resolved. He is apparently still alive today, with some evidence that places him in San Diego, California.

The Xenia awaiting auction at Citroën’s garage sale last year. It sold for €7,825

The Xenia was unique in being a monospace car – a microvan in a time just before the era of the monospace. But Citroën would not adopt the MPV format, despite the success of the Renault Espace, until the Evasion/Synergie of 1994. It is a shame, really. The Xenia would have helped define a format that the Espace and Chrysler minivans would soon prove could be so successful.

A generation later, in an era of the SUV and the crossover, a Xenia-like design with its large glasshouse and compact volumetrics might be worth considering once again. Its clarity, bold geometric graphics and simple massing could prove to be a lesson to us all.

Specifications: Karin & Xenia

Citroën Karin

Length 3700mm

Width 1900mm

Height 1075mm

Citroën Xenia

Length 4200mm

Width 1750mm

Height 1230mm

Wheelbase 2550mm