LIVING SEPARATE LIVES

Long held as quintessential examples of their marques, the Lancia Gamma and Citroën CX were nearly joined at the hip

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

The Citroën CX and Lancia T Gamma are testimony to the fact that there was still room for individualism in big-car design in the mid-1970s. European Car of the Year for 1975, the CX 2000/2200 was a low-drag, transverse-engined DS successor: slightly shorter, slightly more conventional - if only by Citroën's exceptional standards. It would enjoy an 18-year career and one million-plus sales in its various saloon, limousine and estate incarnations.

The Gamma, built to appease Lancia purists who feared for the marque's individualism under Fiat ownership, was launched in 1976 as a connoisseur's model to take over where the Flavia/2000 had left off. It certainly was exclusive, but fewer than 15,000 sales of the Berlina over its eight years was more of a commentary on buyer resistance to a car with engine problems than restricted supply.

Yet had political winds blown in a different direction, we could have ended up with two technically related cars combining the best bits of both. Between December 1970 and June 1973, Fiat and Citroën co-operated by means of a holding company formed with Michelin, which had owned Citroën since 1934.

The mutual benefits were obvious. The French firm, haemorrhaging money, needed cash to develop its new saloon. Commercially booming Fiat, keen to share in Citroën's hightech secrets, saw the prospect of a full takeover. On this point the French political classes already had the Italian's card marked, limiting it to a 15% stake on the say-so of president de Gaulle when word of the deal first aired in '68.