Citroën Conservatoire - filming before it closes. Full walkaround - 29 minutes of French car heaven!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Following on from my Top Ten video, here's the full walkaround at the incredible Citroën Conservatoire before it closes at this location forever. We don't know if and where it will next appear. Includes Projet L, C10 and C60 and the 2CV pre-production prototypes!
Rare prototypes, development vehicles and production cars run door handles with WRC cars, record breakers and Citroëns built for adventure! They even have the Citroën DS that was used to dispense workers' pay back in the day.
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My T shirt in this video from www.redbubble....
#museum #citroen #french
Having worked with Citroën for 20 years around the turn of the millennium, I have known a lot of these cars and the Conservatoire and its staff back in the day. I tried to support them by dragging quite a number of those cars to Germany to show them at TechnoClassica, the classic car show, between 1998 and 2010, and have heard and retold many of the stories that you hint at in your commentary. It was a time when there was a real buzz around the brand, before the financial crisis of 2008 made a big dent in the sales curve and let to a lot of reorganisation (to which I finally fell victim, but that’s nothing to cry about, looking at what the corporation became later).
I was shocked to hear they close it down, but at least officially, it’s not forever, and has more to do with the real estate situation of the ex-Aulnay factory site. Yet having seen the (understandably to a point) ruthless decision making of Stellantis, I can only imagine one good solution, and that’s seeing the collection go to somewhere in France’s less expensive provincial areas. It’s not completely historically correct, since the Citroën brand has always evolved in Paris, but Paris was too expensive even when they were earning good money before the crisis.
A particular merit of the Conservatoire is not glossing over the tales of those catastrophic failures that preceded the GS and the CX in the 1960s. Pierre Bercot has a lot to answer for, but whether it’s his fault, is another matter, see the end of my next paragraph.
Thank you Ian for this walkthrough, it brought back lots and lots of mostly very good memories, even if the later development gives me a slightly sour aftertaste. I have always been a fan of the brand and have lived the big pressure that the glorious heritage put on those whose day job it was to make and sell new Citroëns to people who always expected the world of every new model, but wanted to buy them at bargain prices. This in itself is probably the essence of the brand, which had its roots in cheap mass production and got its “avant-garde” reputation mostly because Citroën’s long time owners Michelin wanted to keep selling tyres to the competitors of its very own car brand, and did so by deliberately making cars that wouldn’t appeal to the same customers. I believe André Citroën himself only wanted to make cars that could stay in production for longer and thus save money in the long run, but he lost his company at the first attempt, the Traction Avant. Michelin took full advantage of the “mad genius” brand image that resulted from his gamble, both by taking control of the company, and by keeping it out of the way of full on competition with people they sold tyres to.
Very interesting read, thanks for taking the time to write it! It's a shame to see all the old car brands disappear..
So glad you got there before it closed Ian. Mind blowing. Surely they will not break up this collection. An important part of France’s history.
They are erasing everything in France . Absolutly everything must disapear as soon as possible ...
American's politics are responsable for all the pilliage. They steal everything from their colonies ... I know you dont like that but that is the truth . I am french unfortunatly and i could give you tens of exemples .
Why does it close? And does it close permanently?
A sad but very interesting walkabout. Let's hope this collection gets to live again.
These are sad times for citroen enthusiasts. Your voice said it all....
This reminds me of Volvo's museum that also closed forever. 2 former creative brands, now dead.
yep, that was also a very sad day here in gothemburg :/
But it is replaced by the new "World of Volvo", which will display way more stuff than the old museum had room for - and closer to the center of Gothenburg as well, not way out in the harbour. A big improvement. Will visit some time this summer, I think.
@@niklaswejedal463 World of Volvo is not a museum in the same way though, it's more of a brand experience center.
0% boredom. So many interesting cars! 99 minutes would still be heaven. Hope this collection will be shared somewhere else.
I visited Paris for the first time last year, with a visit to the Conservatoire pretty much top of my to-do list. I was heartbroken to find out that they were only accepting pre-booked tour groups of a minimum size, and am now even more heartbroken to know I'll never get the chance to see the colleciton at all. Terrible shame and I desperately hope the collection survives.
Hopefully they will manage to build a proper museum.
I try to assable all theses cars as models in all scales. lots of them I owne. but most of these cars are not availabal as modesl. Sorry.
Lutz Maeder, Germany
I've got a tear 😢 in my eye. Hubnut very melancholic at the end of the video. I sincerely hope that the collection can stay together in a new location
What an amazing museum! It's remarkable how car manufactures are starting to not care about their own legacy!! :(
The accountants don't car if the brand name sells cars of refrigerators.
Bottom line....
that's the only thing that counts.
Just wanted to say thank you very much for showing this to us before it was closed down. What a place!
Thank you for allowing us to take this wonderful tour, through the much storied Citroen history with you. It is truly wonderful to see them all in one place, all of the different quirky and innovative designs. Thank you again for sharing and keeping the spirit of all of these old cars alive.
What a collection! Sad to hear it is closing; I hope the cars find good homes...I definitely saw a few I'd like! Cheers from Canada...
I can see you in an Ami 6, Scott. 😉
We don't get Citroen here in the U.S. anymore. This company really looks like they have a lot of fun designing their cars.
Makes me laugh that Trevor Fiore changed his surname to sound more exotic and presumably Italian but decided that sticking with the Trevor was just fine.
Was he a relative of Vim Fuego, lead singer of 80's heavy metal band 'Bad News'?
@@stuarthannay3370*other cleaning products are available
He should have gone full throttle with the name to TVR Fiore!
Trevor Frost sounds pretty cool actually, its like the movie Due date where that struggling actor changed his name from Ethan Chase too Ethan Tremblay because he thought it sounded more exotic.
Thank you so much - I am in Citröen heaven ! I do hope that these cars all remain together and resurface in another museum one day. Great and hugely worthwhile video. Well done Ian !
What a wonderful video Ian. I knew Citroen were very experimental but seeing all those prototype was amazing. It's sad times that it's closing its doors. Many thanks for sharing. At least for those of us who cannot be there you have kindly recorded it.
Thanks Hubnut for the great film👍 Let's hope we see these fabulous Citroëns again soon🙌
What a place! Hope they find a home for all those unique models.
Awesome video. How times have changed. The design input on these cars were so unique. Now we everything look so similar and bland
Talk about kid in a sweet shop! Fantastic film - and plenty of wiper mentions which I always enjoy!
Excellent but sad. A world concentration of the essence of ‘because French’. I hope it does return one day.
Realy a shame that they are closing! What an amazing collection ! It appears to be a trend of closing museums! Fiat museum closed, Volvo museum closed! Now Citroën! But thanks for taking us Ian to this wonderful collection! 👍🏻👍🏻🆙
Man they really have it all. Didn't think half these cars existed anymore let alone the fact you are (were) able to see them. What a terrible shame it's closing
Thanks for doing this for those of us who will never get to see this collection in person. You excel at this type of video; watching you doing your own fixing, not so much.
Una hermosa colección! Gracias por mostrar!
Thanks for taking us on this wonderful tour. Such beautiful cars.
Thanks for honoring & sharing this wonderful French car patrimoine. Probably the most iconic car brand, for good reasons. There are truly priceless treasures in here & I hope the collection won't be sold & scattered...
what a collection, sad it will not reappear
Hopefully it will in time.
The C5 Convertible would have been a really nice glide.
I have always loved citroens styling
An amalgamation of brilliance representing millions of hours of Hautes Ingénieur. I'm excited you were able to video the collection and release it. Thank you many times over from the U.S.
I was looking forward to a more detailed tour of this museum given your love for this marque. Citroen was truly an innovative company even in more recent times, and again I hope another facility will be opened to house these cars.
I love Citroens, the 2cv when i was a schoolboy was bought by social workers and at my age would love one for slower pace of life.
You really hit the right note with this one. Very difficult to celebrate and feel sorrow at the same time. But you did. Would be a travesty if it was to be split. Let’s hope they’ll get a new centre.
Brilliant stuff. Sir.
PS Poppy Kate’s… good call. Went today 👍👍
You've got to love citroen for not just putting out blocks with wheels on, they like to experiment.
Thank you for sharing this amazing and beautifull peace of culture
This is a great video for posterity. Cheers Ian.
Absolutely fantastic video ian ❤👍what a beautiful collection I've never seen so many beautiful cars in one place brilliant
Great to see this, sad that it is closing
Thanks for sharing this Ian, much appreciated 😊👍
Incredible video full of breath taking innovations.
I love the blue Panhard looking car
Such a marvellous collection! Only thing I can complain about is the way they are displayed. I wish Citroën gave this treasure trove of cars a better home, in style of, say The World of Volvo, the Porsche museum or the Alfa Romeo Museum to name but a few. Just parking the side by side in a warehouse is a bit sad looking. Still - I NEED to go to this place. Thanks for a great video!
absolutely bloody amazing. thank you very much, ian. i hope wen all hat is packed up, nothing goes missing and it all survives and gets packed up securely. this needs to last till the end of time.....seriously. i cannot believe it has to close and nowhere for it to go. GEES
What a collection
Old Citroens are just lovely
Also, based on the FAF project with Mehari-2CV mechanicals was the famous greek car, the NAMCO Pony
Indeed. There is a Pony somewhere in the UK.
The problem is, that collection is absolutely massive! I think they'd need a couple of decent sized aircraft hangars to house it! Wonder what they will do with all the vehicles in the meantime! Hope it does re-emerge at some point though.
Pah, terrible! They don’t have an XM estate 😂
Great whistle stop tour, quick but surprisingly thorough!
It is a shame it’s closing (even having only just learnt it exists…). I hope they find a new home that reopens!
Also love the long car collection videos, your knowledge shines through!
I never realised that Citroens had used A / B / C / D prefixes for their models all the way back a hundred years or more. Of course there was also X / Z later - I'd love to see video about their naming scheme(s).
Most of the concept vehicles look amazing too me.
Great video Ian glad you enjoyed your visit
Wonderful!!! Thanks for the video. Love these old Citroën. I miss my 2cv so much.
A lot to take in there, and you're really showing your Citroen knowledge.
I'm pretty sure that shade of green was only used on Slough built cars.
FAF equals "Facile à Fabriquer" (easy to build)
Or Facile à Financer...
Quite an enjoyable tour through history! Thanks Ian. Great video!
Renault and Peugeot Museums next
I do agree: this is French car heaven. Thanks for the pictures, Ian. See you soon »»» Martin
🚗⚡️🔥💨🇫🇷
Citroen always Citroen
Thanks for the interesting tour Ian. Citroen have designed the most stunning cars. Citroen are more adventurous for off piste than certain German manufacturers who play it safe.
Amazing. Thank you for this amazing tour.👏👏💯💯👍👍
The GT.C1 i remember it from an actual paper car magazine. 😍
2CV Cross is Great.
Thank you Ian. Really enjoyed that. 😊
Amazing! The saloon on the cover of this video the Projet L, seems a mix of Citroen and Peugeot, is a CX / 504 but seems also one of the prototype of Renault 20 / 30 : in this prototype there are all the french car makers...
I had just commented it looked like a squashed R20
I was at car imprinting age at the time of XK140s and DB4s (and one of my contemporaries had a Riley RME), but I've reached an age when the only old car I would find worth the effort would be a DS. They are just so timeless.
Oh happy day!! What a perfect video.
Great content again
My two favourite car brands : Citroën and Alfa Romeo. They both lost their souls during the last decades. Great video by the way.
great tour, thank you
thanks Ian, so many gems. and thanks for tidying my head on those early Peugeot era Citroens, the Axel and original Ami. really really interesting stuff.
another great video has always Ian and Carly miss/mrs hubnut and hublets and hubmutt 👍
A great vid, and a grand tour. Thank you.
Thank you so much! I never dreamed that Citroen had so many vehicles.
A fascinating video Ian, thanks. I run a 2009 C1 which I bought new.
You're doing a real public service with these videos, my friend 👍
I remember being in Paris when I was 5 or 6 and being rather scared of the Ami 6's face. I'm glad they made it prettier later on. Both a grandparent and an Uncle had Ami estates.
Citroen are hands down the most interesting car brand and my personal favourite. I owned a GS, my uncle had a DS, my dad had a C5. They made such interesting cars
You should visit the Peugeot museum in Sochaux and also the Bugatti museum in Mulhouse. Both in the Elzas region which is lovely for a holiday as well.
Both very much on my hit list.
Wonderful vids, sir. Fair play, Citroen have made some of the most beautiful cars ever made. Shame to hear of the closure of the Conservatoire ;-(
Thank you!
💪🙂👍
So gutted this place is closing. Whilst I'm in France next week, I will be nowhere near this! Wish I'd known about it before.
Thanks for bringing it alive though! ☺️
Brilliant video!
Ah, there is some bucket-list stuff right there - hopefully back to be on my bucket-list soon enough and in a better space - this collection deserves the best! I realise I have seen quite a few of the concept cars on various car shows, especially those between 1986-2010. The 2000 Osmose was a favorite (still remember the cheesy song they played at the Citroën-stand at the Mondiale de l'Automoblie Paris to advertise their funky new concept! 😅) and the C-Airdream and Airlounge was amazing too. Activa had a huge impact on 13-year old me back in the day - saw it at the 1998 Mondiale, where they commemorated the centinery of the show. You missed to show the 19-19 concept, but it doesn't matter; I have a 1/43 replica of it right in front of me... Also, as much as I love the classic big Citroëns, I have a weird craving for an Acadiane and a C15... never driven either of them, but they speak to me in a profound way, somehow.
Lovely video. I'm in Paris next week so I may even see if I can get in on one of the last few days. Slightly surprised that there weren't more xantias on show, probably my favourite of the three citroens that I have owned.
Gutted I couldn't go down there with you, but luckily I've been before. The crazy thing is there are many more cars in the collection, stored out the back. They get rotated every now and then. I went in 2016 and there are cars missing which I saw (including, I think, the grey Charleston you mention) and there are cars there which I never saw, either.
The second half of the video, with all the prewar styling, makes me think about Poirot :)
Bit by bit, the old world fades away.
Absolutely love what Citroen used to be the Collection is amazing and deserves to be shown off proudly 🫶
I heard a story that when the DS Citroens where used in rallies they disconnected the linkage that turned the headlights with the steering because the lights faced the wrong way when they cornered on opposite lock .
AY UP MR HUBNUT
The gtc1 was built by Sbarro and his students. The same designer of that 6 wheeled cruise crosser. Theyve done some crazy builds but you have to check out their Picasso build (if you search Sbarro picasso). I remember the picasso and the C1 being in modifying magazines back in the late 00s.
Thanks for your video 😮
This makes me wonder what happened to the GT by Citroen prototype. I think it was from 2005 from the top of my head 🤔
They may well still have it stashed away. I believe there are a lot of cars that we did not see.
Great collection. The Japanese/French Citroën/Peugeot link has been quite a common one in recent years as they have dealt with both Toyota and Mitsubishi to build cars. Last one's i think will be the C1/107's as they are soon to be dropped from the Citroën range. Sad times as I like small thrashy 3 cylinder cars.
Now You have a big thrashy 3 cylinder cars... Sad that the brand belongs to a very large corporation and is managed by an accountant for whom only numbers and numbers count.
They should have opened this museum to the public. Hello from Singapore!
Great tour of the Citroen vehicle museum now one thing is l have never seen a 2CV in the tin but l have seen two Citroen H vans one is parked permanently in Darling St Balmain as a Florist and the other was in a company that prints large decals and it was used in a youghurt commercial and those 4 door SMs never new they came in a four door now l know and all Citroens are so unconventional in a good way
Good effort to cram so much into 29mins. Encóre!
I miss 1 car. The 9/12 seater estate in the DS class.
That Projet L makes me think of Peugeot styling of that era
Great video!
Citroens produced in Yugoslavia, in Slovenia, in the Cimos factory in Koper are missing...
Sadly so. We saw a fine display of them at the Croatia 2CV World Meeting.
That Citroen Conservatoire looks like a cross between a Princess and a CX.
Projet L? It does have a whiff of many other cars.
5:30 - I lost count how many times the CX 25 GTi Turbo 2 says both 'Turbo' and has the stylised 'T' logo on and in it, but it's got to be around 17 times.