|
Geoff Matthews was one of Britain’s most influential and
charismatic car designers. He influenced a range of the decade’s most
important styling themes and was a big supporter of monobox concept.
Had Citroën let him have his way, the AX
would have been a one-box shape, rather like the Eco2000
and the Renault Twingo that followed some years later.
Geoff worked on numerous models – from the crisp looking
Chrysler Alpine of 1976, intriguing Matra Rancho and the car that would
become the Renault Espace. But for we Citroën nuts, it’s all about his
work at Citroën, isn’t it? And what a CV! The Chief Exterior Designer
during the 80s and a true Citroën fan (I'm told he drove a black CX
GTi Turbo and a Traction)
he was a bit of a maverick and so – I like to think – was the driving
force behind retaining Citroën’s continued innovative design process,
despite his somewhat conservative masters at PSA.
The game-changing EOLE project was managed by Geoff - and pioneered
developments in aerodynamics and automated design. He worked on the AX,
the BX
and did some refinement work on the XM.
But for me, his genius was most evident in his work on the refreshed CX
of 1985. One of the greatest challenges for a designer is to restyle
and update an existing model – especially if it’s already a harmonious
and well-proportioned shape like the CX. But Geoff achieved it. With
clever use of composite materials, he improved the CX,
giving it further balance, svelteness and modernity. Check out the
black sill covers, which make it look longer and sleeker. See how the
side strips and rear wheel covers unify to tidy up the design. His
genius was to skilfully make it look as if the car had been designed
that way in the first place.
In an era when dreary old dullards of the car industry and clueless,
unimaginative motoring journalists criticised Citroën for being ‘weird’
(the kind of insipid, lazy scribes who insert the word ‘quirky’ into
anything Citroën related) Geoff was one of those who shrugged off these
bores in the pursuit of true design excellence and innovation. He
helped to create what we now know to be the cars of the future. From
the lightweight and handsome AX to the exceptional XM, remarkably a car
that looks better now than it did 25 years ago.
Speaking in 1990, Geoff observed: ‘There is less room for visionary
individuals than there used to be: less room for the very people who
gave us the car industry in the first place. The great old men of the
car industry – the ones with the vision and power to get things done –
have gone. The Ferdinand Porsches, Enzo Ferraris, William Lyonses,
Henry Royces. Those men stamped their personalities on their cars’.
And now Geoff has gone too. As I glance outside my window and look at
my beautiful Series 2 CX (a 22TRS - my favourite model of all), I feel
sad I never had the opportunity to shake his hand. But I’m extremely
proud to drive something styled by this true hero of the motoring
industry. Thanks to Geoff – and all those other pioneering champions of
Citroën past – I still drive the car of the future.
|
