3 On The Column
3 on the column, brings together Andrew Roberts, the renowned Classic car writer and Brian Thomas, to talk Classic cars, with occasional guests joining in to share their classic car world.
3 On The Column knows that all of today's classics were once new cars, so revisit with us and enjoy their new car moment and how they are viewed today.
Want to share your classic car world with us? get in touch, we want to hear about it.
3 On The Column
Citroen Car Club's Nigel Wild Joins 3 On The Column Classic Car Podcast
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With the prize for the 'Best Live Stand Demonstration' at "Practical Classics Restoration Show 2026" going to the Citroen Car Club for their live demonstration of the Citroen DS Hydropneumatic suspension, Andrew and I needed to find out more. The solution was to talk to legend of the club, Nigel Wild.
The key to a successful demonstration at the NEC is making it accessible to the audience. Nigel can get an explanation of the difference between constant spring rate and infinitely rising spring rate across to Andrew and myself so well that we will think we have an engineering degree!
We also discover the cars from other manufacturers that have been influenced by Citroen and find out what car Alex Moulton drove.
How about restoring a bus? Easier than you might think! We take a look at the Boris Routemaster and compare it to the original and learn about the design and engineering that made them so fit for purpose.
Do we need to fix Stellantis? Are there reminders of British Leyland? Should we be worried? And where do the Chinese fit in?
All will be revealed...
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Hello, welcome to another episode of the Frill MaCollum Classic Car Podcast with Brian Thomas and Andrew Roberts.
SPEAKER_01Hi Andrew, how are you? Well, I've been musing over the beauty that is the slough built citron e day with that slab of walnut veneer on the dashboard. And which of course brings us to our noted guest, man of all citrons, man of double chevron wisdom, Mr. Nigel Wilde himself.
SPEAKER_02Hi Nigel, thank you for coming on the podcast this evening. I can't wait for this one. I think we're going to find out lots about citrons and a bit about the uh the shows as well. So you're very welcome, Nigel. Hi.
SPEAKER_00Hello, Brian. Hello, Andrew, and thank you very much for inviting me.
SPEAKER_02It's an absolute pleasure. Um really, really pleased to uh have you on board. Um I think probably anybody who um has been to shows, motor shows, classic car shows, the NEC and others, um would always make a beeline to a citron stand because the cars are absolutely amazing. I was particularly taken by the citron stand at the um PC Practical Classics Resto show a month or so ago. And um do you want to perhaps tell us a little bit about you you won an award, didn't you, Nigel? Yes and I think that was well deserved. Would you like to tell us about it?
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yes, um it was it's not why we do it, but it is very welcome when it happens. And the award was for the best live demonstration at the show. Um the reason for that is that whilst many clubs can and indeed do mechanical work, body work, dismantling, refitting, and servicing, there is only one mark in which one can potentially demonstrate live hydraulics, that's to say the citron hydrneumatic system. So several years ago I inquired of the organizers who were promoting the idea of live working, which distinguishes the restoration show in March from the classic motor show in November. Um I suggested that they might like the idea of a running DS in the middle of the hall five, um, fully functional, so that we could demonstrate the hydraulics in action. What could possibly go wrong? And they went for this. Um there was a little bit of risk assessment. I can imagine. Yes, yes. Uh but in fairness, they were very much in favour of it from the start and did not put obstacles in our way with the proviso that if there were to be any issues, obviously they reserved the right to pause the demonstration. But it went without a hitch, and we've been doing it ever since. Uh I've sometimes wondered whether we should change it. We develop it, but whether we should actually change it in any fundamental way. But having been in receipt of this award rather confirms my feeling that we're doing it right. The organisers have obviously noticed what we do, the audience seems to like what we do, and of course, although we might do the demonstration to in front of, let's say, a couple of hundred people each weekend in total, that's a fraction of the 23,000 attendees at the show.
SPEAKER_01Of course, with that modern technology the way it is, your demonstration will be circulated around the world at a press of a button.
SPEAKER_00That's probably true. Uh I never had the time to see who is videoing it, who is um recording it, whatever. I'm you know working to the audience in that regard. But the object of the exercise is to explain hydro pneumatics in a form which is accessible to people because I've seen this explained, and I'm not in fairness to the various YouTubers involved, I'm not going to name any names. But there have been cases. Oh go on. Certainly not.
SPEAKER_01No, no, Brian, no. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00Well, rule number 59 and do not slag off other enthusiasts. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. No, but the point was, uh, in this case, a um a YouTuber had explained the hydro pneumatic system, and I thought that is convoluted. And various of his um viewers called him out on this. I didn't, but they did, and he explained it again in a few a further uh broadcast. But again, it wasn't as simple as it may have been, and I thought the reason he's struggling with it is that he doesn't actually hasn't got to grips with the fundamentals. So I thought we'll do it differently, and we will do it straightforwardly. And I've had people come up to me after the demonstration and say, we knew bits of this, we understood it in part, but this is the first time we've had it explained in a manner that makes sense overall. And that's exactly what I was aiming for.
SPEAKER_02So why do you feel it might be difficult? 'Cause everybody sort of understands the concept, and probably every Citron fan and other Classic Car fans have seen that wonderful video where literally a a DS travels around on free wheels, and it it's a wonderful concept. We know it's a legend. Um what are the sort of fundamentals that kind of make that that work? And why is it so different to sort of anything else, certainly of the time, and in some ways, probably since? It's quite special, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It is, but it's also very logical. The thing is, the subtitle to my demonstration, uh, which is why does that funny car go up and down? Everybody knows that that is what they do. And likewise, as you say, many people know that you can drive a D on three wheels, which is actually more a function of the weight distribution and the balance than the hydro pneumatics. However, the the question that one needs to ask is what is the point of the hydro pneumatics? And I always start this by saying if you have a steel spring, it might be a leaf spring, a coil spring, or a torsion bar, if you put a load on it, it deflects a certain amount. If you double that load, you will double the deflection. That's an oversimplification, but it's broadly correct. Now that is constant rate suspension. And if I then throw in infinitely rising rate suspension, two things happen. One is that the audience glazes over, but secondly, they don't know what it means. And I liken this to standing on a football. If you stand on a cheap plastic football, not recommended, but everybody's done it, um, the more you compress it, the firmer it gets. That is rising rate. You can't compress gas into nothing. So Citron wanted this characteristic which gives a beautifully soft rye to start with, but as the gas is compressed, it progressively stiffens up. And it's difficult to do that in any other way. You can do it with air suspension, which has exactly the same characteristics, but air suspension uses relatively bulky airbags because it's running at a much lower pressure, and you have the problem that you've got probably moist air being pumped around the system, which is going to cause corrosion problems. So Citron, of course, thought if we use compressed nitrogen at high pressure, roughly sixty bar, nearly a thousand pounds per square inch, and we then use hydraulic fluid as a fluid lever to transfer the mechanical movements of the suspension to that gas by virtue of a sphere with a diaphragm in it, and that will give us the rising rate suspension that we're looking for. That's the key to it. But going beyond that, they realize that if you are using a piston and cylinder arrangements to use the fluid to transfer the movement to the gas or to the diaphragm within the sphere, you will always have some leakage past that piston. And hence they came up with the idea, rather than try and seal the system, they would have a tank, a pump, and a reserve of pressure so that it could compensate for any leakage within the system. Any leakage then going back to the tank. And the great advantage, the master stroke, was that rather than treat the suspension in isolation, they said we can use this to provide powered steering, fully powered brakes, and of course the wonderful semi-automatic gearbox on the DS-19. So you have a truly centralized system doing all of these things. So the fact that the car goes up and down is, as you see, basically a byproduct, useful in some ways, such as jacking to change a wheel, but nonetheless a byproduct.
SPEAKER_02And so has there been anything out there that got close to Citron DS in terms of other types of vehicle that you're aware of?
SPEAKER_00Um there've been various developments um before, during, and since. Air suspension was already known about. That is used routinely on trucks where the size of the airbags is less uh of a problem, as I say. It has its own issues because it works at relatively low pressure, let's say 100-150 pounds pressure. Um, so that's been around for a long time. Cadillac were using air suspension on their top-line models in the late 50s, um, and they quite rapidly dropped it when they found it to be unreliable because they hadn't developed it sufficiently. Now, Rolls-Royce licensed the Citron system for self-leveling on the Silver Shadow in 1965. Um, now no manufacturer licenses another manufacturer's toys unless they can't find a better way of doing it or getting round the pages. Yeah. So um they did this, and in fact, the shadow has a plate on the engine bulkhead saying suspension and steering components under license from Citrela. Strangely, when they came to the spirit of 1980, um they put that plate uh under the rear seat uh on the transmission tunnel. I can't imagine why they'd do that.
SPEAKER_02No, no. Perhaps they were sort of getting trying to sort of take it all very much more at market, maybe it's uh it's one wonders how many people who drove Rolls Royces would have perhaps looked under the bonnet anyway, to be fair. Um I don't know. Maybe I'm doing them a disservice. And of course um, Oh, forgive me.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say of course the Borgvard Big Six had air suspension, but it was not, sadly, because it's a car I like very much, a rip-roaring success, and I'm sure Nigel will agree. That's true.
SPEAKER_00I it's like front-wheel drive. Other people have done front-wheel drive, such as Alvis, etc., and Cord, at more or less the same time as Citron with the traction of odds. The difference is Citron made it work in volume and popularized it for the mass market. That was the key. And it's the same with hydro pneumatics. Hydronatics was tested on the Big Six H of 1954, just on the rear, and then came in in all its glory with all the features as standard on the DS19 in '55. You couldn't have a DS without power steering or power brakes or semi-auto gear change. So they got this to work, and it stayed working, albeit there was some development through the customer base, but nevertheless, a million and a quarter Ds can't be wrong. So I think that was the essential difference, as you say, Borward, and they were not alone in doing this, but nobody persevered with it. Um other things that have come in since, I mention in my uh demonstration that British Leyland, or BMC, British Leyland, Leyland, whichever name they had that week, um, came up with, of course, the hydroelastic system on the 1100 and on the Mini, and then hydrogas on the Allegro. Now both of those systems are, if you like, descended from the Citroën system. Um, Alex Moulton, one of the two smart Alex, the other being Alec Isigonis, of course. Alex Moulton was a great Citroen fan. The last time I saw him when he was still alive, he was running an XM. Prior to that, he'd run a GSA, so he was very, very cognizant of the Citroen system. And of course, he knew that BMC were never going to go with a full power hydraulic system. You know, they just could not be persuaded to go that far in exactly the same way as Rover didn't manage to make the Rover 2000 quite as DS-like as they may have originally intended. Uh, witness the nose on the gas turbine Rover P6. Um, so Isigonis uh um Moulton came up with the idea of a sealed system so that you had displacers on the Austin 1100, uh which you pumped the car up initially, and you will probably remember the days when there were lopsided Austin 1100s to be found on the roadside.
SPEAKER_01Particularly pronounced with the land crab, a lopsided Austin 1800 was quite a sight.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So, you know, they they he was trying to achieve a similar result and gain some of the benefits without the complexity, and of course, hydro gas on the Allegro was the development of that, which did actually have spheres. So um sadly, the Allegro's utter failure in the marketplace overshadows its undoubted merits.
SPEAKER_03And they're not gonna be able to do it about But as I recall what would you say about the suspension on the Princess though? With that particular setup. Again, it it worked better.
SPEAKER_00Um well it worked reasonably well on both of them, but again, the problem with the Princess was that it's the only car I've ever known which had three name changes inside 18 months on its release. From the 1800 and the 2200, I think it was the 1822, and you know, it had varying names, and they dropped the Woolsey variant so swiftly that everybody was.
SPEAKER_01It's a wicked crime and uh a besmirch upon humanity to drop the Woolsey name. And they should be, you know, they basically those responsible should be forced to watch the quality connection on a permanent loop for the next 100 years. I'm not biased.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, no, and I do know what you mean by the quality connection video. Oh dear, oh dear. But let us not be too unkind to Leyland. Um it's that is what happens when you ha bring too many marks together um too quickly, and instead of pr providing some true leadership, you leave Austin to fight with Morris, Rover to fight with Triumph, Jaguar to do what the hell they like, and what are Land Rover doing this week? And that's not going to work. And bringing it up to date for a moment, dare I say, unless Stellantis are very, very careful, the same thing is going to happen with the 14 brands that they are now master of. Because they're in a very similar position.
SPEAKER_02It's a massive range, isn't it? 14 brands. That's huge.
SPEAKER_01Not dissimilar to the dare I say, to when the time of the BMC Leyland merger. Think of the different makes they had under one umbrella across the world.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's undoubtedly true. And of all the stupid things to do, you have all of these illustrious names, Austin, Morris, Jaguar, Rover, Triumph, not to mention others which have now almost been lost like Alvis. You know, uh like Panhard, they became known purely for military vehicles. And yet the name that you give this conglomerate is Leyland, which meant nothing to the average car buyer, and was purely known in bus and truck circles and very, very well known. Uh I I have no bias here as the owner of a Leyland PD2, double decker. Um so we should not go there. Um but uh they're not all citrunes, you know. Um so no, it was it seems stupid to say we're going to call it British Leyland. Why would you do that?
SPEAKER_01I imagine to show the ascendancy of Leyland over the former BMC Empire. I have to point out one of my friends who's um ex-senior member of the British Motor Industry, I think he calls Donald Stokes the bus salesman. He doesn't mean it as a compliment.
SPEAKER_02No. But they sold a lot of buses though, to be fair. True in true.
SPEAKER_01How tell me someone about your bus, Nigel, by the way. Oh dear, this this is well, I couldn't.
SPEAKER_00Did you buy it from Nick Larkin? No, I did not. Nick does not have the monopoly on funny motor buses, contrary to popular belief. I I could try and confuse you and say which bus, because there are actually two. However, no, this is an ex-Lead City Transport um PD 211. Translated PD means passenger double deck, and PD2 indicates that it is post-war. Um now, this is an absolutely traditional British double decker bus, open platform and all. So, you know, shades of um Summer Holiday and Cliff Richard and the London RTs. This one is unusual in that Leeds were the first operator to have a batch of 20 with the brand new Leyland Pneumocyclic Semior. Auto transmission. Up to then everything had had a crash gearbox. In other words, no synchrone mesh, double declutching the order of the day, and the drivers needed to damn well know what they were doing. This was an air operated epicyclic box and it was very advanced at the time. Leyland built a in effect a pri a pilot production batch of twenty. Leeds had all 20 of them, and this is one of those. So it looks utterly traditional, but was actually in that respect state of the art. Oh, and they also put air brakes on it rather than the usual vacuum servo. So I bought that direct off Leeds City Transport many moons ago. And it's now part of the shameless plug here, Keithley Bus Museum collection. Wow. Which is, as the name suggests, based in Keithley with a fleet of, would you believe, about 125 vehicles now? Gosh, wow.
SPEAKER_01No, I I would like I very much would like to say when did it exit service?
SPEAKER_00It it went into service in 55, came out of service in 72, but because it was one of this very early batch of what became a standard transmission on all buses in Leeds, it went into trainer service as a driver training unit and spent uh several years until 1978 as a driver trainer, and at that point it was withdrawn for scrap and I bought it. So it was it was still fully functional. Still is allegedly. One of these days it may even get finished.
SPEAKER_02If I can sort of ask you, Niger, I mean I have tremendous respect, not coming from any kind of engineering or, you know, any kind of mechanical background. I can change the headlight bulbs on my car if I need to, and that's fine. I can change a wheel. I never cease to be amazed by the work that people take on and the cars they have. But when you take classic vehicles into bus and HGV territory, it's you're dealing with so much more weight. Um the the sort of costs to restore something like that, I imagine, get exponentially higher. Um it's a major undertaking. Is is it more of an undertaking than a car would be? W what are the sort of challenges and I'd I take my hat off to you for doing it. I mean, what a job.
SPEAKER_00Well, I can't take much credit on this on the basis that the bus is still largely unrestored, um, as in ex-service. So it's an intention that hasn't yet come to fruition. But the on the one hand, cars are designed to be owned by individuals, um, whereas buses were obviously intended for fleet operators, local authorities, etc. So there is that, but set against that, okay, they are much larger, so there is the physical issue of storing them. They do not fit the average garage, and as occasional drivers prove, they don't fit under every bridge either. But um, you know, we at Keithley Bus Museum have finally managed to buy um a former, well, it's actually a former Leyland West Yorkshire Foundries building, would you believe, uh, which is a modest 60,000 square feet. Um, you can get lost in that place, seriously. I can imagine, yeah. But the point is, buses are designed to do, you know, millions of miles in service, quite literally, and they are very, very robust as a result. I mean, the obvious example with which everyone's familiar is the Rootmaster. Sure. That was the absolute epitome, the apogee of half-cab double deck bus design, where we we will never see anything better than that anywhere in the world of its type. And look how long that's lasted in service for a 1950s design, and how many are preserved, and incidentally, how much they're worth. Transport for London recently sold, I think, the last half dozen of those which had been on heritage service, etc., and they were all a bit grubby, and they fetched somewhere between 35 and 50,000 pounds a piece. Gosh. Which is a hell of a lot more than most buses are worth. But coming back to the point of working on them, the bits are bigger, but they are also stronger. It's rather akin to working on steam locomotives. Again, they were designed to be maintainable by a number of people, and they usually are on the basis that you need a railway on which to run them. Whereas buses can be individually owned or owned by a small group, and you can move them about. As opposed to, let's say, tram cars, which need to be based somewhere, and of course, the default location for those at the UK is the National Tramway Museum at Creicht in Derbyshire. Highly recommended if you have you been?
SPEAKER_02Um I haven't myself, no, no. But I I should.
SPEAKER_01I should I really should. I always think of trams when I rewatch Genevieve, short not long after the last London tram ran. But of course, the elephant never forgets. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Well, the the strange thing, um, the the Kreitch Museum star uh set up in from memory 1959, and that coincided with Leeds ceasing to run trams. So a batch of Leeds cars went straight down to Kreitch, and only recently have some of them been restored. It takes so long and it costs so much to do a tram, but they've been in some have been in storage all this time. Um, because Leeds was one of the last tramway operators, we took trams from all over the country. We had London trams in numbers, we had uh let's see, uh Southampton trams, uh Manchester trams, all sorts of nonsense cast off by other people who were getting rid of them. So it was a very eclectic fleet, and hopefully fortunately, some examples of these have made it to Creicht to make that what it is now. But keeping back to the topic, the the point is that trams need to be run on lines and therefore they have to be in a particular location, whereas you can take a bus to a rally almost anywhere. And that's the beauty of it. And you can invite your friends along as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah. You have a few more seats than you get in a car, don't you generally? Yes.
SPEAKER_00Mr. Nigel. Hence the Yeah, I was gonna say, hence the attraction of the historic commercial vehicle society's Trans Pennine Run.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Because you can take so many people with you. A sort of a like a cherubong trip, which does bring me to my next question. Mr. Nigel, sir, what is your favourite bus-related film or television program? Oh, that's a or one of them. I mean, do you look at the runaway bus not for Margaret Rutherford and Frankie Howard, but for the bus?
SPEAKER_00I think it's a combination of both. Um, the bus played a major part in that particular film. You know, it was essential to it, but without the stellar cast to go with it, it wouldn't have been half the film it was. Absolutely. Have you ever seen it, Brian?
SPEAKER_02I haven't. No. No. I've had a missing childhood for these kind of movies.
SPEAKER_01It's essentially a remake of the ghost train, only set on, I think, was it a BOAC coach in the fog?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01Who is and basically amongst the passengers, someone is a bullion thief. Wow. So anyway, it's well.
SPEAKER_02So yes, and of course BOAC coaches, I think, are those sort of almost like a grey ham type bus in terms of style. They were used to service sort of gap with is that what I've got in my mind?
SPEAKER_01Yes, well, I defer to your I I defer to your wisdom.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're absolutely right, Brian. Um, and of course, they were in BOC BOAC livery as well.
SPEAKER_02Quite blue and white, I think. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And you would find one and a half deckers as well, which start as a single decker at the front, and then have a an extra half deck upstairs to the rear to allow room for all the baggage below it, which was that was a unique feature to m to airport coaches in particular. Yeah. But it's also a thing that was buckled.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes. And of course, even the Rootmaster was sort of adapted to being a airport coach as well, wasn't it? That had its own version. I can't remember what the designation of that version is. RMC. RMC.
SPEAKER_00So it's a rootmaster coach. Exactly so. Um, fitted with rear doors, um Concertina doors, and used um well, certainly, I think it was BEA, British European Airways, who had some of those in their livery. Um certainly London Transport used those on their London country services painted green, the green line coaches. Okay. But use a typical thing of let's adapt the basic design and make it do exactly what we need. Um it's the exact opposite of the dare I say, new bus for London, the Boris Master, which I would confidently describe as the worst piece of bus design I have ever seen. Don't hold back, Nigel.
SPEAKER_01Let us know what you really feel.
SPEAKER_02I have to say, I love them, I absolutely love them. Why? And I was I I think the shape, I can see what they were trying to do in terms of sort of replacing a rootmaster. And um I've been on two, and much to my wife's annoyance, we turned down two buses until we got the rootmaster new shape one coming on. I said, Right, we can get on this. And she said, Are you sure it's right? Are you happy to get on this bus now? I said, Yes. And I was so excited. And I have to say, my father actually drove a root master bus for London Transport. So I kind of grew up with the old rootmaster. And do you know I loved it? I absolutely love the new Rootmaster bus. But I I just wanted to stick up for them there. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely don't don't don't be sorry because I said that quite deliberately to see to see whether I'll wind you up on that. And no, I love them as well. The the reason I said it's the worst bus design I've come across is that it was designed uh by Thomas Heatherwick, who is not a bus engineer or designer, um, but was a pet designer of Boris Johnson, who of course wanted to put his mark on the new London bus. Now, I like the look of them, I like the detailing, I like many things about them. As a public service vehicle, it is a disaster. It costs too much to build relative to the normal ones. Um it doesn't have the range, of course, it's a hybrid. Um it didn't have the ventilation originally because yet again they decided we'll do away with those pesky opening windows, which of course gave it the the name, the nickname of the Roastmaster. They never spent millions putting opening windows back into them. And no, I'm not making this up. So they did actually send one up to Leeds for us to look at it, um, because of course the intention was to sell this to any other operator who wished to buy them. The only snag is that everybody voted in droves to completely ignore them. Uh it's a shame in that regard. But as a bus, the idea of we will have the open rear platform, but no, we can't use it because we can't afford the customer service agent, aka conductor, who is not collecting the fares. We have three sets of doors, so fair evasion reaches new heights. We've two staircases, so people can run riot and we're losing space all the time. And there's about four different floor levels in there for to keep the disabled occupied. What could possibly go wrong?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when you say that, it kind of sounds like it could have been designed almost by a committee and they didn't necessarily get on, but um yeah, you say that it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00It was Heatherwick without have having the experience. Whereas the Rootmaster was designed by people who knew exactly how the RT had fared in service and knew what its uh shortcomings might be and how to develop it. Heatherwick created the Boris Master um basically as a pastice tribute to the Rootmaster with the curved domes and the interior uh layout and colours and so on, all of which are gorgeous, but that doesn't make it an effective bus. No. Hence my initial comment deliberately. So, you know, the sad thing is you will remember Boris's predecessor with the Bendy buses, of course. Yes. Um again, do you know what happened to those when they came out of service?
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't know. I think everybody was quite keen to see them leave London, I think.
SPEAKER_00Oh, they left London. They the vast majority were towed up to Barnsley and scrapped. Brilliant. I saw that Barnsley scraps most of the UK's buses, regardless of operator, that's where they all end up. And I I saw these being chiseled and hacked apart when they were perhaps seven or eight years old, because nobody wanted them. And guess what will happen to the Boris Master when it comes out of service? And it'll be a shame. I'm sure we'll have one at Keith Libus Museum. Um we already have a fleet of well, I think there are three rootmasters, so we can't complain about those. But uh, you know, it's it is the difference between designing something as a vanity project and designing something as a piece of engineering. And this is what Citron was so good at, they didn't design stuff just because they felt that that was what the public wanted by market research. Ford's theory of, well, if the public wants metallic purple paint and vinyl rules, that's what we will give them. Citron's view was you pay your money to have your car designed by experts, not amateurs. This is what we believe you should have, and if you disagree with us, go somewhere else. It's high-handed, but it worked for so long. Sadly, with everything now being accountant-led, it's no longer the case. No manufacturer of anything can afford to be too outlandish and say, oh well, we're going to do it this way, and if you don't like it, tough.
SPEAKER_03You can't afford to do it.
SPEAKER_02So and the great thing you you talked about the the root master and you touched briefly on kind of how they were dealt with in service. I mean, they they had this amazing process where the buses got to a certain time and they went back to um is it Chiswick? Somewhere out there. Oldenham Works. Olden. Oldenham Works, yes. Yes, yes. And they were kind of systematically kind of taken apart, completely refurbished, and the bodies were all taken off and swapped around, and engines and everything was overhauled, and uh they came out for another seven to ten years' service, and that was I mean, it was designed to be able to do that, wasn't it? I mean, certainly couldn't have done that with a modern Rootmaster. Um what a tremendous machine for its job. It was a s that was the point.
SPEAKER_00The Rootmaster was a system. And the RT before it, when you when you see Cliff Richards' film Summer Holiday, there are lovely shots of Oldham works with bus bodies being swung on high by the travelling cranes. Now, this is how London Transport operated, and whereas Leeds City Transport, my Leeds bus, is a conventional design. In other words, the body was never removed from the chassis in the busy's life, and that one's done about a million and a quarter miles, as far as I know. But that was a provincial operator. London Transport, on the other hand, used the vehicles so intensively that they developed this system of being able to separate the buses out into body, chassis, running gear, and mechanical elements and put them back together separately, it reduced downtime. And that was what they did with the Rootmaster, which incidentally does not actually have a chassis, it's a unitary construction, and how yes um with subframes front and rear and independent suspension on the front end. That bus might look traditional, but it was revolutionary of its time. Again, it's the engineering approach, they knew what they could do, and dare I mention that that one has air suspension as well. So, yes, um it was the the RT and the Rootmaster were part of a system, and sadly, after the Rootmaster, all of that was lost. There is no trace of olden and works now, and London buys buses which they run for a period, maintain and service, but ultimately throw away. As with cars, so many are designed to be leased, not bought, leased by the first operator. And providing it gets through a three, five, or even seven-year warranty, um, and it's cheap to run, you might be servicing it every 20,000 miles, so it might have three services in its first owner life of sixty thousand. And at that stage, does anybody really care what happens to it?
SPEAKER_02That's right, they don't. They just get another one, don't they? And start again.
SPEAKER_00Why does I'm afraid?
SPEAKER_01It's the same, but there's of course the phrase iconic is overused, and anyone who overuses it again should be forced to watch the quality connection. But could we say that the rootmaster is a genuine icon of Shall we say public um public vehicles, public service vehicles, public transport?
SPEAKER_00Without a doubt, it is. Um in the n in terms of the length of service, the quality of the design, the fitness for purpose. You know, it is a brilliant piece of design. As I said, as far as half-cab double deckers will uh go, that will never be equaled. That's why I was initially so rude about the Boris Master, the new bus for London, because by contrast, you know, I can pick on so many engineering solecisms on that. You really do not want to know. I've been all over the darn thing in detail when they brought it up to Leeds. Uh, to the horror of the staff with the I had every hatch open and so on, and I was peering at it, thinking, okay, what makes this bus tick? And uh, you know, I wasn't wonderfully impressed, sadly. So, as I I mentioned earlier, vanity projects. But no, the root mastery is without doubt iconic. That's nothing to do with it being symbolic of um Great Britain, of London as a whole. Uh, in that respect, it's as iconic as the red telephone box.
SPEAKER_02And you've also got automotive buys talking London, you've also got the um the FX, well, the FX3, FX4 um taxis. Um, again, we could probably call them iconic. Um the endangered ambulances. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Built to do their job. Yes. Uh the certainly certainly with the um FX4, which was the last of the traditional taxis, and of course that was later re-engined with a Nissan unit and became automatic, that was utterly fit for purpose. Easy access, um, plenty of space, the legendary tight turning circle, just what you need a taxi to do. Um, you probably know that when um operators started using the Mercedes Vito minibus as a taxi in London, those were actually modified with a steering rear axle to get the appropriate turning circle.
SPEAKER_02So really, wow. Because that was something demanded by the carriage office, wasn't it? It was.
SPEAKER_00And it's it's logical, essential. Um and as I say, the the veto couldn't quite do it, so for taxi use only, they developed a contra steering rear axle. So when the front steers right, the backsteers left to get the whole lot route.
SPEAKER_02Um I recall reading somewhere that it was designed so any taxi that was fit for purpose had to be able to do a complete turn outside. Now, was it the Ritz Hotel? It was one of the hotels. Um Andrew will probably know this one.
SPEAKER_01I think it might be the Ritz, but I'm more no I have no pride, and I'm happy to look it up, as well as rewatch the knowledge with Nigel Hawthorne. Um I think it's a bit of a myth that um the cabbie had to have a bale of hay with him at all time. I think the regulation was that the taxi had to be properly fuelled. One thing I did learn not that long ago was that the early FX4s had no soundproofing under the bonnet because the public carriage office thought it was a fire risk. Right. Which is why they make a considerable racket. And also the FX4 was the first London taxi with four doors.
SPEAKER_00Oh, right, yeah. Yeah. As opposed to three. Yes, as opposed to three doors, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes, without the open luggage compartment next to the driver. It was also the first London cab with automatic transmission. Wow. Yes. I mean, the change from the FX3 to the FX4 must have been, you know, Grand Canyon to the average cabby.
SPEAKER_00Well, again, it was it was development in the same way as succession of the uh Rootmaster to the RT. You learnt from what had been done before, you developed it, you introduced the uh features that you mention, um, which is why the FX4 stayed in production for so long. And the the funny thing is that the replacement for the FX4 was allegedly going to be the Metro Cab, if you recall that. That's right. Yes, I do. Um, which of course gave its name as a nickname to a certain generation of Range Rover, the T38, which was rudely referred to as the Metro Cab because it looked very similar. Uh but we will we'll not go on to that. The thing was the Metro Cab had none of the visual cues of the FX4. So when then the TX came out later on, which is the current uh or almost current cab, that brought back the FX4 appearance updated. That achieved what the new rootmaster was aiming for but couldn't do, um and has been very, very successful. And of course, we now have the the very new fully electric cabs in London, um, which again retain just enough of the heritage appearance to keep everybody happy. That that is fitness for purpose design. Of course, the fact that we've got the Chinese doing it is perhaps not quite what was originally intended.
SPEAKER_02But it's interesting because um a lot of people say at the moment that with the sort of rise of the modern sort of Chinese SUB type vehicle, they don't have that heritage to call back on. So people will kind of think, well, yeah, it's just something that needs to be cheap and it will do the job. Where of course, with the um it's actually Geely, isn't it, that's the partnership that also owns Volvo, um, that make the current um taxicab. And as I say, that they've looked at really sort of calling back on on some of the heritage uh design, and also they're making a very efficient product there to do its job. Um it's not a cheap vehicle, but then taxis had never been cheap vehicles um because they're built to do the job, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00They are, um, and that's entirely true. The what the Chinese have done here, thinking that back to the Citrone connection in China, initially in the early 90s, the Chinese were doing um ZX clones, Citron ZX clones, um modified for the Chinese market. They did a saloon version, for example, and these were granded Dongfeng. This was official an official cooperation, and Citron were looking to get into the Chinese market. Now, it didn't stop half a dozen other companies doing fake copies of the ZX and making them look like Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes. The only way you could tell the diff that they were ZXs was by the door apertures, which remained the same. But the Chinese have moved on from that, they've moved from copying what was being done in Europe and licensing it to doing their own designs uh but using European brand names, MG notably, and of course Aroa, R O E W E, Rover, and now they are quite happy to use BYD or BYD, A Moda, um, etc. etc. names that we never knew because they have the confidence to produce products of their own. And of course, they can broadly, if I'm being awkward, um, they could produce the cars at a half the price and sell them for two-thirds of the price. I don't think they will actually do that, but they could, and it makes me think of the demise of the British motorcycle industry in the early 70s where BSA and Triumph and Norton, with heritage going way back, had been producing fundamentally similar bikes for decades, with some development, but you know, people like Edward Turner, um, you know, brilliant designer, and also responsible for that uh compact all alloy V8 that you mentioned in the Daimler V8 250, etc. Um, that was an Edward Turner design, but he looked at the Japanese and thought, oh well, they're just making press press steel framed step-throughs, the Immobile Honda Cub, etc. And then, of course, Honda came out with the Honda CB750 four-cylinder, twin overhead cam, four carbs, electric starts. Now, that revolutionized the market. Um, it didn't fall apart, it didn't leak oil, it didn't vibrate. Um, and within a matter of three or four years, BSA Triumph was effectively dead. And I can see much the same thing happening. If I were in charge of Stilantis at the moment, I wouldn't be worrying about um which brands are we going to keep? Do we even keep Citroën or will Persia cover the sector of the market now that the two are, dare I say, more similar than different? I would be thinking, how the hell do we compete with the Chinese on their own terms? How do we manage to fend off the rise of the East? And there isn't an easy answer. BYD are uh a battery manufacturer who happen to build vehicles.
SPEAKER_03You get on an electric bus in London and guess who's built it? It's a BYD. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_02I think is there part of Stellantis, I think, that that has possibly bought I think it's Leap Motor into the group? Yes. Am I right?
SPEAKER_00They have they have gone into partnership with Leapmotor, yes. Um which is understandable, you know, you would need to do that because if you can't beat them, join them. Um join them. Yeah. The problem that Celantis has is that unlike VAG, you know, Volkswagen have got a very nicely differentiated Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Seat, etc. Plus, of course, they're upmarket brands, and they're all reasonably differentiated and sorted out. Whereas Stellantis have got a diverse portfolio of 14, ranging from Citron and Persia, obviously, to what was GM Europe, Vox or Lopal. Um, but then you've got Chrysler, you've got Fiat, uh, you've got Dodge in the States, etc., etc. Not to mention Maserati and Lancia, etc. And many of these are now one-trick ponies. I mean, Maserati is a bit like Brigitte Bardot, you know, no visible means of support. Um shouldn't say that. Um, but you know, in other words, very attractive, but uh how is they even still in business with their sales? And when you look at the pie chart of Stellantis Marketing, I think Fiat have 20%, Peugeot have 20%, Citron have maybe eight percent, um Maserati figure virtually nowhere. Um DS figures, I think, with about one percent, if that on a good day with the following wind. And sooner or later somebody is going to have to apply the hatchet to this little lot in exactly the same way as Leyland did. Is what you said earlier. Yeah, absolutely. Um it's thinking the unthinkable, but who would have thought in the seventies if if you had said then, right, well, Austin's going to cease to exist. Morris will cease to exist. Rover will end up making a cheapy hatchback imported from India and rebranded. You know, somebody would have thumped you on the nose. It would have been inconceivable. More recently the loss of Sab.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's one that makes me sad really, because I've had a couple of Sabs over the years and uh that there was something very, very special about them. We bought them both at very high mileage and proceeded to do a very high mileage again. And um if you serviced them, they'd sort of go on forever, and and they were very different. Um but yeah, um they had their challenges. Obviously, General Motors at the time weren't happy to let Saab go to potentially a Chinese um because they were worried about giving over their secrets, I think, on the new uh Saab 9.5 that they did. Um reality, should they have kept Saab going? I think it would have made a nice sort of extra brand against Vauxhall Opal, and people would have been able to see that differentiation and a reason to go upmarket above Vauxhall. I think it was quite a good match, really, and I think it's a real shame that they didn't make more of it, really.
SPEAKER_00The trouble is Saab were of the Swedes, Volvo were the conventional operators, and I take nothing away from their safety um impetus because you know they introduced crush zones and seat belts as standard and all sorts of other bits and pieces on what were essentially very conventional cars, and the build quality was superb. Well, Saar had the same superb build quality, but they were innovative from the early days of the '92 with the the you know three-cylinder engine, etc., etc., and of course, front-wheel drive. I wonder where they got that from. Well, you know, uh gradual convergence in design. Thought Citron or PSA have taken on Ford's marketing techniques, but virtually everybody has taken on Citron's front wheel drive and aerodynamics. But with Saab, they were ploughing a lonely furrow on their own and ultimately became part of GM. And you know, the the latter Saabs with the GM input did not really gain from that because the GM were trying to cost account them rather than do it the way Saab wanted it done. And you end up in a position rather like Jowitt. Jowitt had built brilliant two-cylinder cars pre-war. Post-war they came out with the javelin, which was absolutely stunning. You know, torsion bar suspension, aerodynamic, flat four engine, all coming out of a set of sheds in uh Bradford. You know, absolutely brilliant brilliant. And then it's incredible, isn't it? Yeah. But it was a one-trick pony, and the moment that BMC bought out Briggs Motorbodies who were doing the press work for Jowitt, that killed Jowitt Stone Dead. That was it. And it's the same with Saber, they're too s they were too small to survive in the form that they were. There is a reason that Lamborghini and Ferrari and Maserati are all now part of a much, much bigger combine in each case. Um Stellantes know damn well that they have to be large to have any chance of surviving. But they've got to rationalise to have that chance. And much as it pains me, that rationalization could ultimately lose it on Fiat used to have a full line of cars. Now effectively they're down to variance of the 500.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. So which is is a real shame. So uh um we probably should bring this one to a close. Um we have covered so much ground here this evening. Um, thank you so much. Um this podcast has gone with you in exactly the way that I wanted it to. We'd just have a chat and we'd see exactly where it goes. And I think the best podcast we've had, and I'm sure Angel will agree, have been with people like yourself. Um, has been absolutely amazing. Thank you very much, Nigel.
SPEAKER_01Well, enthusiasm is infectious, Nigel. I think incredible Day of the Jackal with that certain citron scene in your honour.
SPEAKER_00I would highly recommend I would highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_02Would you be kind enough to come back and do another podcast with us in the future, Nigel?
SPEAKER_00I would be honoured uh to come to come back. Yes, I've I've thoroughly enjoyed it and I've probably talked way too much, which is the risk. Oh, you have no no.
SPEAKER_02The la as I said before, the last thing we need, the last thing a podcast needs is Andrew and myself continuously trying to talk to fill a gap. And if you get good quality guests, we've been really, really fortunate so far. Um, this will be our 22nd podcast, and the guests we've had on, and I'm sure Andrew will agree, have been absolutely super.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Um, and the key is to get people to talk, and that's you know, exactly what it's about, really, because you're far more interesting than we are.
SPEAKER_00I the more the more I doubt that, the more I talk to people over the years, the more you realise that virtually everybody involved in well, anybody with an enthusiasm, it might be cars, buses, railway locomotives, trams, aircraft, whatever, they all have a story to tell, and so do the vehicles. Uh you know, I am just one of those. Uh so there are far, far more of them out there. Most of them are safely hiding.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll look out for them and we'll get them on the podcast. We'll we'll give them um give them a voice. How about that? Oh, yes. Well, thank you, Nigel. It has been absolutely amazing. Um, so we will say goodnight, and um, ladies and gentlemen, uh listeners, and Nigel from the Citron Owners Club. Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. And please like and subscribe. Yeah, please thank you, Andrew. I was I I nearly forgot to say that. You've done the job. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03My pleasure. All the best, guys. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01For the telegraph article about the Citron at Slough. He basically was referred to the Citron Slauble E Day's dashboard as more as looking as though someone had put a wardrobe door in it to make it appeal to Wolseley owners.
SPEAKER_00Um we could let him off with that. You realise that its unofficial title, even within Citroën Cars, was The Plank.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I can I can believe that. Um it looks incongruous, shall we say.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing was, as I mentioned, they brought the DS out as the full featured vehicle. Now, they then needed a sub-product, a sous produit in the French, um, which of course became the ID, the E Day, for the French taxi driver, for whom the shift from the traction of Aunt in any version to the DS was way too large. And therefore the ID was produced, which of course had hydro pneumatic suspension, but manual steering, manual gear change, manual brakes, not even a server in 1956.
