Citroen BX 4TC Group B

Cars

It was Citroën’s illegitimate, palsied baby, and the company disowned her. Shameful, right?

The BX based 4TC didn’t exactly light up the sky like a flame, its best result being a sixth place in the 1986 Swedish Rally – and it apparently only competed in three races before the Group B was banned.

According to the webs Citroën was only able to sell 62 road-going 4TCs – because they were built badly and were unreliable. In fact, according to press Citroën even insisted on buying back many of these and deconstructed the lame duck of a Quattro aspirant.

N9TEcutaway The N9TE engine looked nice, at least…

But because of this, and given our penchant for the singular and irreplaceable, the BX Group is, in our minds, the sort of car that we would give our left arm to get hold of.

It’s one of those rare examples of a car that seems to encompass a variety of impulses that created a whole era. Even though it was ill conceived and didn’t work, Citroën’s aspiration to compete with the demonic beasts from Audi, Lancia and Peugeot is something to be admired – and like a platypus it SHOULD have survived.

Darwin was a genius. The survival of the fittest through natural selection is what created the world around us – and what consigned cars like the Citroën BX 4TC Group B to history.

Lovely looking drawing of the engine, BTW.



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