A few times in the past, the automaker from Saint Ouen-sur-Sienne had been halfway there. Though they'd never attempted a true supercar, Citroën had plenty experience with wild, artistically-daring rides in their history. Firstly, the 1930s-era Traction Avant, which continued production well into the fifties, including (by then) its retro 1930s looks. Next, the aerodynamically-designed DS sedans. There's also the Maserati-powered SM, and even the cartoony, duck-like 2CV.

The company was not adverse to experimentation, is my point. The Traction Avant was the first production front-drive with a fully-independent suspension, for instance. A lot of those wilder Citroëns from the '60s and '70s were equipped with a patented self-leveling hydropneumatic suspension, which could vary ground clearance at the flick of a switch. So... wasn't as though Citroën never pushed any boundaries.

The GT by Citroën is (was..) the brainchild of Takumi Yamamoto, a childhood friend of Kazunori who became a designer at Jean-Pierre Ploué's Style Citroën division as an adult. Citroën's 'Advanced Design Manager' at the time, Giles Vidal, agreed to allow Takumi's wacky idea to flourish for awhile, apparently giving him the go-ahead in 2003. From that year until the 2008 Paris Motor Show, ideas for the GT were shuffled between Citroën and Polyphony Digital; probably lots of faxes, .pdf files and emails, uploaded pictorial sketches and so on, while Takumi & company apparently built the GT's physical components in Jean Pierre's studios. Over time, the GT by Citroën became a physical reality.

Though the collaboration seemed genuine for a while, Citroën and PD honing their sights toward one of the most outlandish vehicles to travel a few of Earth's motorways, the project led to naught. A single example became the final result of their 5-year efforts, which would mostly remain displayed upon showroom floors, perhaps taking an occasional drive somewhere safe, where no other traffic could smash into it, like a test course. Top Gear evidently drove the GT concept at some point as well, which we'll discuss in a few paragraphs.

Hey. Unlike a lot of conceptual automobiles, at least the GT could move!

Indeed. According to UltimateCarPage.com this concept had a 646 horsepower mid-mounted Ford V8 engine, but I haven't been able to discern much else online about the actual build, construction, and assemblage of the GT by Citroën.

After its splashy debut, six cars were then supposed to be created for some very rich customers, each GT costing just north of 2.1 million dollars. Such a high amount was not totally out of the question at the time, considering the Veyron was priced somewhere around $2,000,000 from 2005 until the GT's Paris Show intro.

But altogether, the project fell through.

Toward the end of the decade the world's economy hit a sudden low; the Great Recession of 2008 had reared its ugliness; Bernie Madoff leading the way with his gigantic stock market schemes, Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy of all time, millions lost their retirement money, banks needed government bailouts. Things got worse in 2009, and would remain so for a couple more years. Now was NOT the time to spend lots of money on frivolous daydreams, okay?

Even if all six of those monsters actually sold (which I firmly believe would've happened, and rather quickly; our world is so full of zillionaires...) we're still talking of 'only' $12,600,000 being earned altogether, which believe me is not as much as it sounds. Again, the Veryron's price tag was also quite high at the time, but Bugatti (backed by Volkswagen) had a good head start with Veyron sales, before GDP numbers collapsed worldwide.

Maybe the cost of building the GT plus the cost of tooling parts for all six examples plus the cost of everything else a carmaker needs to consider for a brand-new model became too expensive, on the production side of things. Like many other massive autocar conglomerations, being conservative is sometimes best for survival, especially during hard economic times. Was this really the moment for Citroën to release something so extraordinarily eccentric?

"Peut-être le coût de production for this ... monstruosité ridicule... will be better spent to properly develop whatever issues need most attention for our usual passenger models," Citroën executives possibly muttered at the time.

Couple examples. Could've been there was a problem with excessive high-speed glass-vibrations in the C3 hatch's external mirrors, for instance. Or the heaters within the semi-luxurious Citroën C6's seats were discovered to draw too many amps during testing, which could surely lead to long-term problems with blown fuses or (at the very least) unreliable BCM computer readings, according to findings from Citroën's recherche et développement team. Doesn't sound too exciting, but most of the time this is what successful manufacturers spend the bulk of their money on.

Most companies can't afford to play "Ferrari for a Day"; bread and butter must come first for those who make their living from the common public. Such things as mirrors and seat-heaters and driving light modules can take a lot of money to develop and make cost-effective, assuming they aren't being outsourced.

The GT by Citroën wasn't Polyphony's first attempt to bridge fantasy and reality. Several others, such as the Amuse S2000 GT1, Nismo Fairlady Z S-tune, and Nismo Skyline Coupe also began as Polyphony pipe dreams. Over time these others eventually became realities though, while the GT by Citroën remained a one-off. However, the process of imagining and then constructing those others was much easier than it was for the Citroën, since the S2000, the Z-car, and the R35 Skyline were already extant; Honda and Nissan had already done all the hard work!

I decided to visit the Top Gear website. Was wondering if Jeremy or anyone on the show ever had the experience of driving the GT concept. "We drove it around London and parked it outside Harrods, because why the hell wouldn't you?" comes a quote from the site. Not sure who said this: James May? Jeremy Clarkson? -- But that's a direct quote.

A few more words from TopGear.com seem pertinent, eh? Since they're the only dudes who seem to have driven the thing, outside of Citroën.

Well it looks awesome. 

Doesn't it just. The GT's design takes into account how people play video games, insofar as they're given the choice of a number of different perspectives from which to drive. So the GT was designed to flatter those angles, even inside. Aero is at its core, hence the dramatic bodywork.

And we are told though the GT is not and was never intended to exist, Citroen worked out how much power its fictitious powertrain would develop, how the aero and suspension would work and behave and so on, then fed this into Polyphony's computer. So while we can't prove otherwise, in-game it handles like something of its size, weight, power and type should. In theory, anyway.

This definition doesn't fit the 276 horsepower Honda NSX, often considered Japan's first supercar. A few supercars also have drivetrain layouts that don't include mid or rear engines, such as the Nissan GT-R, Dodge Viper, Mercedes AMG SLS series, Ferrari 599, Corvette editions from the C6 & 7 generations, several of the most powerful Aston Martins, and so on. As usual, definitions are all over the place, just as they are for muscle car. Some say the Viper and Corvette are merely 'sports cars', for instance.   

Anyway, so continues the saga of the GT by Citroën, the show car which looked as though it was not going to compromise its show car roots. What the zillionaires saw in Paris/2008 was what they'd eventually get, and more.