CCotW: Citroën Osée (2001)

Attendees at the annual Geneva International Motor Show are accustomed to seeing dramatic concept cars from the Italian Carrozzerie, but at the 2001 show a very special car sat on the Pininfarina stand, proudly displaying its ‘Best in Show’ award. It was a silver, cab-forward small sports car that seemed to recall all sorts of heritage sports coupés, everything from Auto Union grand prix cars to Le Mans endurance racers.

However, there was a twist. A walk around the car revealed the distinctive chevron motif of Pininfarina’s chosen marque: Citroën.

Citroën?

The Citroën Osée – Pininfarina hoped it was the start of an expanded relationship with PSA

Pininfarina has a long, storied history of working with Peugeot, dating back to the mid-1950s and the Peugeot 403. But until the turn of this century Pininfarina had done nothing for Peugeot’s PSA sibling, Citroën. With the introduction of the C5 in 2001, though, Pininfarina sought to change that with a sports car concept that celebrated a new era in Citroën design.

The sports car format was chosen precisely because Citroën was not (and still is not) known for them. Citroën is known for technical and packaging ingenuity, and distinctive styling (in the Bertoni/Opron eras, particularly), but not for memorable sports cars – it had built no Fiat 124s or the like.

And so Pininfarina set out to create a sports car for a new era. It named its forthcoming concept ‘Osée’, French for ‘daring’, which represented the spirit of the design team and their ideas, and Pininfarina itself, which was investing a considerable amount of money in the pursuit of an expanded design role at PSA.

The classic DS, which Pininfarina critiqued

Pininfarina identified a number of classic Citroën styling cues that would inform their design. In the press release that accompanied the introduction of the Osée, Pininfarina outlined these:

“A number of strong features of volume and surface area were identified in models such as the DS and the sporty SM which, in addition to representing a historical and cultural heritage for the make, are also fundamental benchmarks for modern car design:

• Extreme volume ratios linked to the engineering structure – a large front bonnet/wing and the passenger compartment pushed backwards
• Smooth, simple, streamlined surfaces, animated by clearly legible guidelines
• A pointed section at the centre of the bonnet
• Lines that descend towards the rear
• Continuous front with air intakes half hidden in the lower part”

With these heritage styling cues in mind, Pininfarina also determined the format of the car. It was to be a three-seat mid-engined sports car, bringing to mind the Matra-Simca Bagheera, an everyman’s supercar of the 1970s. But unlike the wedge-y Bagheera, the Osée was to be more curvaceous, recalling classic Citroën design.

Rudyard Kipling’s beloved character Bagheera, as rendered by Walt Disney and Matra-Simca

The legacy of the Bagheera (not officially acknowledged by Pininfarina) was a mixed one and made for a somewhat conflicted inspiration. The car was a French classic with an enthusiastic fan base, but it was only a middling seller. Its design was experimental and its build quality was spotty, to say the least. It had an innovative composite body that was difficult to fit to the chassis – and that chassis was totally ungalvanized, in fact not rust-proofed in any way, thus dooming it to corrosion problems the moment it left the assembly line.

To add to this, there were several niggling engine and transmission issues, so it is easy to see why the Bagheera won German auto club ADAC’s ‘Silber-Zitrone’ (Silver Lemon) award for poor quality.

The Bizzarrini Manta – an early Giugiaro classic. Inspiration for the Osée?

When the finished Osée was viewed on the stand, there was also at least a passing resemblance to the Bizzarrini Manta of 1968, an early Giugiaro Italdesign car that had helped establish the Italian master’s independent reputation. That car was built on the frame of a Le Mans racer and sported a powerful Corvette engine mounted amidships. The Manta also sat three abreast, as did the Bagheera.

But whether one saw Matra, or Manta, DS or SM, or Auto Union or Le Mans car, it was definitely a Citroën – albeit spiced up with influences from other classic sports coupés.

Once one got one’s head around the concept of a Citroën sports car, an immediate tension in the design became apparent. As Pininfarina itself had said, the DS and other classic Citroëns had a long hood and front fenders and cab-rearward architecture. But a mid-engined car has, by definition, cab-forward architecture; the engine placed amidships pushes the cab toward the front wheels.

The hood on the Osée was a dramatic sweep over the front wheels and down to the nose, not a long broad sweep like the design of the DS. Still, the chevron motif and simple curved massing gave it a distinct Citroën character.

Dramatic canopy lifted for access to the cockpit seating

The cockpit seated three, with the driver in the centre in a slightly larger seat than the flanking passenger ones. This seat was fixed – the steering wheel and pedals adjusted. Also, the passenger seats were slightly behind the driver to allow for extra room – necessary, as the seats were right behind the wheel-well intrusions.

Accessing this McLaren-like seating arrangement would be difficult if not for the dramatic canopy that lifted the entire windscreen and roof forward and up, to allow stand-up access to the seating.

The central seat for the driver meant a commanding view

Once seated, the driver had a central view out of the curved windscreen. Cameras substituted for mirrors and the instruments were arrayed across a tube which curved across the cockpit. Stretched between the tube and the cowl was textured fabric – more of a tonneau cover than a dashboard.

The engine mounted just behind the cockpit was a three-litre V6 capable of 195bhp, which was coupled to a five-speed paddle-shift transmission driving the rear wheels.

Dramatic graphics on the rear fascia of the Osée

The roof and engine cover sloped down and pinched together to form a ‘boat tail’ above the dramatic graphic of the rear fascia. Here again, the chevron motif was found announcing itself in both the forward and rearward DRG.

The Osée from above – an organic shape, with boat tail. Plenty of metaphors in this design

Seen from above, the car has a distinctively organic, piscine shape like a ray or a skate. Combine that with some of the more organic surfacing and the ridge line that runs like a backbone across the car, and one is left with a sense that this might be a techno-organic life form rather than just a sports car.

It was this richness of imagery and metaphor, the evocation of classic sports coupés and the respect for Citroën’s design history that made the car such a hit at Geneva in 2001. It also leaves us more than a bit wistful, as the Osée never moved beyond the concept stage and Pininfarina’s unique vision of a possible design language for Citroën was left unrealised.

Osée Facts & Figures

Wheelbase: 2650mm

Length: 4150mm

Width: 1895mm

Height: 1156mm

Front track: 1600mm

Rear track: 1612mm

Engine: six-cylinder 60°V, 2946cc, 24 valves, 4 overhead camshafts,

Power: 194bhp (140kw) @ 6000rpm

Torque: 267Nm (197lb/ft) @ 3750rpm

Gearbox: Automatic five-speed + reverse sequential ZF, rear wheel-drive

Brakes: ventilated discs front and rear

Suspension: Hydractive III

Front tyres: Michelin PAX 225-640 R 460

Rear tyres: Michelin PAX 285-640 R 460