Crowbar Rumbleford Critiques the Citroën Ami

[Otto Puzzell]

Why Design?
By Crowbar Rumbleford

Someone once waxed eloquent in positing "The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart." How true. And if ever there was a car with heart – miles and miles of heart, that car would be Citroën's own surprisingly long-lived Ami (or "friend"). For surely any visual cues to be treasured were best considered by the likes of one Ms. Keller and one Mr. Wonder.

The Citroën Ami was sold by the storied French automaker - one allegedly possessed with an ability to design and construct attractive automobiles - from 1961 to 1978. If there were any doubt of the off-kilter tastes of the French – if their renowned affection for Jerry Lewis films wasn't enough proof - The Ami was for some years the best-selling car model in France, and the majority of the 1,840,396 units produced found homes in the land from whence french-fries did not originate.

The Ami was introduced to fill the gap between the Quonset-hut 2CV and the pregnant-Studebaker-look DS. If only the Ami had either gone the industrial, corrugated metal route, like its lower-priced sibling, or had awkwardly aped the '53 Studebakers that emerged from Raymond Loewy's design team, the gut-wrenching Ami might have been a more palatable design. However, Citroen seemed to have dropped some mid-1950's Detroit monstrosities, and a smattering of industrial design cues from outboard motors, refrigerators, and various other sources, into a mix-master, and then let Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso fight for control of the on-off switch. Festooned with furbelows, sloppily overlapping closures, and add-on surface excitement the likes of which designers of the Pontiac Aztek could not conceive from the depths of a really bad acid trip. It is, perhaps the worst piece of design, ever. 

Does your faithful writer damn this abomination too vigorously? Let's have a look.

[Ray B.]

The french sentences seemed to have been translated by Google or such. Figuring what they mean is a tough job,  but it's a delight to imagine them uttered by Maurice Chevalier.

[Paul Jaray]

barrett, I have a question: you wrote that this is your favourite car of all time, but was this your opinion the day you 1st saw it, possibly the day it was presented (if your age make it possible) or it is your favourite classic car nowadays, if you have to point at the car you like best now?
It make a huge difference, imho.

[neilshouse]

Barrett, I like your style!

[Paul Jaray]

That make sense...you are not alone.
There are a lot of people who are attracted by cars with an odd styling...there is also a fan club for the Fiat Duna!
Sometimes, this is due to a feeling of simphaty that these neglected cars generated, not to their styling.
Probably Citroen's design was too advanced: they knew that after 50s years its car will be undestood!

[Ultra]

[DeAutogids.nl]

...a Talbot Tagora over almost anything!

Now to find one...

[grobmotorix]

How could I have missed this thread completely??

I hereby confess: I´ve always loved "la missis".

During my design studies some years ago I´ve tried to analyse the Ami´s design and to develop an accessoire line based on its main styling clues.

Here are the best sketches, I´ve drawn back in 2005:

[Otto Puzzell]

Wow - you are a true artist!

[ami6]

By "Grobmotorix" - the guy who created those wonderful design studies above - I was pointed to this site. Sorry to be late in bringing this up again, but I felt a few commentes needed to be made on the Ami6.

First of all, the Ami6 was not a design of it's own. It is based on requirement specifications given by other departments within the company, customer feedbacks and also on market developments, as well as restrictions from both technology and regulatory bodies.

To mention a few points:

* as some of you might know, the first studies around the Ami6 were made 5 years before it hit the market. Already 1956 the first drawings appeared to bridge the gap between the prestigious DS and the "bread-and-butter" 2CV. At that time, design was far away from what the Ami later on turned out to be.

* Flaminio Bertoni has been a lover of curves and smoothness, when you look at his sculptural and architectural works you will discover that waves and flowing design dynamics has inspired him for decades.

* Requirement specs from the General Manager and customers were pushing lots of pressure onto a natural evolution of own design ideas. Headroom for back passengers, length of car, practicalities such as a big and easily accessible trunk as well as the requirement from the CEO to *not* create a utility shape (known as estate car) defines an ambitious list of "don'ts" while the "do's" are left to the genius.

* The US market always has been inspiring for Citroen evolution, both from technology, production and design. When you look at highly remarkable blogs such as the "BACKWARD-SLANTED REAR WINDOW" http://autos-lunette-arriere-inversee.blogspot.com/ you will discover that many back-slanted windows have been brought to US customers and have proven to be successful. The website lists several dozens of designs even into nowadays. Why not adapt that successful style to Europe?

* Restrictions such as the French Type Approval regulators (Departement des Mines) have also left their traces on the Ami (the early front series of Ami6 was supposed to be designed like the later 1976+ Citroen DS Cibie invented the first rectangular reflectors for the Ami6, 26% more effectiveness due to auxiliary reflectors at top and bottom): This first design was not approved and thus Bertoni simply had to "morph" the front lights upwards, in order to meet THEIR requirements.

* The car been addressed to women at that time, and to "young budding families with kids and a dog" who live in the vicinity of larger cities (this is what Automobiles Citroen defined as the market segment for potential buyers).

The big success of the Ami came by the Estate version of it, the Ami6 Break made it to the market in 1964. Now, the car became usable for small companies and craftsmen who found their demands being reflected at a low price tag.

Sure, polarizing design is not everybodies darling. But certainly the majority of designs in that Space Age era had been way more brave and courageous than nowadays, when rather revenues and market share define a cars shape than during those decades...!

My $.02

www.ami6.de

[Otto Puzzell]

Mr. Rumbleford is on vacation (holiday) this week. Perhaps he will comment when he returns to the AutoPuzzles offices.

[grobmotorix]

Welcome Ami6.

Thank you very much for this concise and informative details oabut the Ami´s design!

If you´d like you may use the search engine and discover many unique citroen designs, one-offs etc.

And of course anyone at autopuzzles.com would appreciate any contributions or new topics from you, too.

So, have fun at autopuzzles.com, my favourite website!

[Otto Puzzell]

Ol' Crowbar sent me a letter recently. He's all stove up in the hospital somewhere in India, having gone into fits of orgasmic pleasure upon seeing a Tata Nano. He did ask, in his letter, if any of the AutoPuzzles family night have an interest in critiquing other controversial automotive designs, to share with the membership of this august site.

I told him I'd make an inquiry; and that's why you are reading this now.

Any takers?

[grobmotorix]

Maybe next week...