From Liverpool to France and back: this CX Prestige is a masterpiece of man-maths and quirkiness
The idea of a Frenchman buying a right-hand-drive Citroën in the UK for export back to his homeland sounds bizarre, but that’s exactly what one French car lover did 20 years ago, before last year selling the car back to a Brit now happily driving it in the UK.
“I like French cars,” says Richard Head, its new London-based owner. “I like their quirkiness, which I’m pleased to see Citroën and Renault appear to be rediscovering. My first company car in 1990 was a Citroën BX, and I have a Renault 5 Turbo. I wanted another French car as my daily driver.
“I liked the idea of a Citroën SM but good ones are hard to find and expensive. In any case, I wanted something more modern that I could use every day and justify, in my man-maths way, as a daily driver.
“So I gravitated towards the Citroën CX, then to the Turbo versions, and then I discovered they made a CX Turbo 2 Prestige and decided that was the one for me.”
Richard immediately started looking and soon found the very thing: a tidy-looking CX 25 Turbo 2 Prestige registered in 1986 and showing a reasonable 150,000 miles. “It was advertised in the back of a monthly car magazine,” he says.
“Although it was right-hand drive, it was being sold by a Frenchman living in France! Prestige Turbo 2s are extremely rare. For example, only five were registered in the UK. I dare say he’d had trouble finding a good left-hand-drive one in his own country. He’d bought it 20 years ago and in the past 10 years he claimed he’d spent £30,000 restoring it.
“He wanted £30,000 for it, but with each issue of the magazine it was still being advertised and at a lower price every time. I decided to be patient and then it appeared at auction. It was my chance and I got it for £12,500, or about what a decent Turbo 2 costs.”
The Prestige was the limousine version of the CX, 25cm longer than standard and with a slightly higher roofline at the rear. Featuring huge armchair-like seats trimmed in leather, masses of rear leg room and all manner of luxury features, it was a car fit for the French president and his ministers, although Richard’s UK example was first owned by a firm of architects in Liverpool.
Richard bought the car in December 2024 and the following month crossed the Channel to collect it: “I wasn’t disappointed. Since then, driving it in the UK I’ve found it’s happiest on the motorway, where it will cruise at 70mph all day without fuss.
“On local roads the suspension irons out all but the most aggressive speed humps, but it’s not so great on potholes, where it bangs and jolts – but then what car doesn’t?”
Apart from fuel (the CX’s turbocharged 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine returns only around 22mpg), the only expense – and it was a big one-has been a replacement clutch. It was an engine-out job that cost £3000 at Citroën specialist The Chevronic Centre in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
That bill aside, Richard loves his big luxury CX and drives it every day. His favourite feature is the centrally located Blaupunkt remote control pod that affords him much more ergonomic operation of the radio. “Now that’s quirky,” he says.
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