Historical- C114- Citroen SM/ Merak engine

Goddag och välkommen Göran,

I assume you are Swedish? (I am 50% Swedish -and French).

You are indeed welcome because while some -or actually one person- may disagree about having SM's discussed here they are wrong, Maserati and Citroën were entwined for a full seven years, an association which would have continued had there not been the disastrous fuel crisis and its domino effects. Citroën also comprehensively modernized the Maserati factory, without which de Tomaso would not have much to wok with when he took over in 75/76 after the energy crisis brought disaster.

To answer your questions briefly (and not rewrite my book here): Citroën asked for a compact V6, initially under 2.7 liters as there was a tax threshold above that.

The chain tensioner is an infamous issue and truckloads of engines came back to Modena with bent valves.

Maserati immediately devised a solution to this flaw which was implemented on the Merak, and sorry but this took place well before de Tomaso arrived.

Paris however did not accept the suggested modification/solution. The reason was not technical but political: there were pro Maserati and SM people in Paris, mainly Pierre Bercot but by then, since 1968 just after the implementation of the purchase of Maserati he was no longer CEO of Citroën Automobiles but of the Holding above: Citroën SA and by 1971 he had left entirely. His successors at Citroën Automobiles, Claude Alain Sarre 68-70 and Raymond Ravenel 70 onwards refused to update the SM and ignored Maserati. In fact Sarre who I interviewed for my book was so dead set against the SM that he resigned as CEO a week after having to do the introductory speech at the world premiere press conference at the 1970 Geneva show in the Ambassador Hotel.

Regarding Alfieri he was brilliant but had his flaws and made mistakes such as the tensioner.

If you want to find out more my book will be out this summer, we are working on layout now. the text is 50% exclusive interviews, 50% new research, total 156713 words.

Since you are an SM man you will be happy to know that the V8 minus two and the V6 plus two mysteries are at long last solved, fully documented with photos of those mysterious engines and the whole saga of the Loch Ness Monster SM V8 is also told in full detail with separate interviews and photos.

Here is the presentation you can register your interst at bottom of page.

http://eaurougepublishing.com/books/detail/maserati_the_citroen_years

The photo column illustrates two different books in process.

As you can understand I am not going to write more about this here: the book has the answers in detail.

best regards,

Marc

 

Varsagod Göran!

Du skulle träffa mina vànner Johan Helenius fran Competition Motors (leta pa web) nara Uppsala och Lars "Lasse" Frykholm som är experter.

Ha det sa bra!

Marc Sternhagen Sonnery

 

Hello Göran, glad you are looking forward to it and yes there had just not been any proper research on that era which is now four decades in the past.

I will let you know if I pass near Norr'ping: tackar!

Marc

PS Lars actually wrote something for me for the book.

 

Hi Goran,

Nice to see you on this forum. I think there will be very few here to match your expertise on the workings of the C114. Speaking of the C114, they sound absolutely fantastic at full throtle, don't they?

Ciao,
George

 

Bobby trapped it a bit! LOL

Most Americans think of that as a trait common to all Italian cars ...

They present us with challenges that we endeavor to overcome.

 

I have driven an SM when I was a student being happy to find a very good example sold by an architect to me.

I loved the car for the extraordinary mixture of sophisticated french style and italian casino.

This SM affection lasts till today

Regards
Johnny

 

Hi Marc,

The latest scoop on your book, please.

Ciao,
George

 

There are 2 SM's for sale on Ferrariads.

 

Thought all of them had been replaced by Ford's Cologne V6...