This article intends to document the design changes that Citroën had to make to import the SM into the USA and Canada. It is noted that in the early 1970's, Canadian authorities started ramping up their automotive safety and emission rules. The result was that the first SM's in Canada had some traits akin to the European models, but by 1973, they were nearly identical to USA cars. 

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GOVERNMENTAL REGULATIONS

 

Governmental regulations drove many, but not all, of the changes on USA SM's as compared to their Euro counterparts. The first really organized attempt of the US government to regulate cars happened in 1966 when president Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. This act ultimately created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) and resulted in a set of design standards, called the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). You will see us refer to specific FMVSS sections on this website since they help us explain why certain changes were made to USA Citroëns. These standards were first mandated for all cars manufactured after January 01, 1968. These standards kept evolving, so it is sometimes difficult to find the text of the version of the standard that existed back in the era of the SM. 

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Canada had their own requirements and laws. The most significant change to Canadian laws appeared to have happened in 1972 when Canada adopted automotive safety rules very similar (but not identical) to the US rules. Canadian rules were called Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS), a name an acronym very similar to the US version. 

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PRODUCTION DATES

 

On DS’s, there was a pretty solid relationship between the car’s production date and the model year. A manufacturing date between September and August represented the model year. For example, a 1972 car could have been manufactured anytime between 01 September 1971, and 31 August 1972. Many design changes, both large and small, tended to be implemented in September to align with the next model year. We suspect that one of the reasons for this August/September change-over was that the factories were largely closed down in August, as per French custom. This allowed the factory to be mostly idle while they prepared for changes to the next year’s models. The SM tended to follow this same convention, but perhaps with a bit less rigor.

 

There were plenty of mid-year changes as well. As an example, two 1972 SM’s might have a number of visible and invisible differences. Much of this is documented in the parts books or other paperwork. But there are sometimes differences between two SM’s that do not appear to be specified in any documentation that we have access to. We have therefore relied on several experts to help confirm the configurations. These include (listed alphabetically):

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Chris Dubuque, George Dyke, Roland Faragher-Horwell, David Hume, George Klein, Greg Long, Jean-Francois Martin, Charles Morse, Andre Pol, Jim Rice, John Titus, and Dennis Welch.  Many thanks to Greg Long for letting us crawl over his many SM's for this article. 

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We would also like to thank readers who have sent in photos and information to help us improve this website. If any readers see errors or omissions, please let us know.