In my dreams, after getting the 10-car garage, as well as filling it with all kinds of amazing classics, I want to turn my attention to getting those out of the road – to shows. But I don’t want to transport them in a humdrum pickup or trailer bed – I want to show off my transportation too. So step right in and take a look at the 1988 Citroën Tissier Car Carrier which will allow you to transport cars to Pebble Beach in complete Gallic style. The story behind this car is even more fascinating as the chap behind it, a Mr Tissier, once said ‘I will do what others won’t’ – he has certainly succeeded with this. Its available for sale at Lane Motor Museum here for $45,000 – massive thanks to Rocco B. for this find!
It’s hard to know where to start with this – and how to describe this vehicle. Is it a car? Well sort of…is it a truck…well sort of. It was the brainchild of Pierre Tissier, a French Civil servant who wanted a multi-wheeled car based on the Citroën DS. The DS was one of the best-looking cars to come out of France in the last 50 years, so I can fully understand Mr Tissiers’ desire. However, he found normal trucks too slow, as he needed to make ‘high-speed’ deliveries between Spain and France. Thanks to the hydropneumatic system – this meant the car was super low, but rode as smooth as a regular DS, except with the capacity of towing one and a half tons.
Whilst the above is slightly in jest – these actually found use as newspaper delivery vehicles, hearses and eventually ambulances as they could comfortably cruise at over 100mph. Although I am not sure if a hearse needed that same kind of speed. But moving to our car – located at the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennesse – has its own backstory. The car has done over 552,000kms – yes well over half a million km, with the engine and transmission having been replaced ‘just’ 50,000 km ago.
The car has undergone some renovation work in 2021 to keep it in decent condition but will need to have a light restoration to bring it up to showroom spec. The chassis looks mostly clean, and the interior is doing exceptionally well for its age. A small dent to the front wing will mean a replacement may need to be sourced from France, where spares are plenty. So does this Citroën Tissier tempt you – and would you like a super-fast low-riding car transporter for your other classics?
“Ultimate car hauler”? Where you from, boy? Unless it has a red oval on the grill, not here. Maybe to haul Honda Fits, and being of European origin, I’m sure that’s exactly the type of vehicles it hauled. I didn’t do well in math, but if the 1st motor went 500,000kms, that’s a mighty impressive 310,000 miles. Some modern diesels today don’t do that. Always said, the French knew how to build a car, and this certainly proves it. This has been around for a spell, I read, this has the CX 2.5 turbo diesel, about 121hp, but a gas job was available too. While it is front drive with the hyd. suspension, the rear is good old tag axles with leaf springs, and will ride accordingly. Again, with a 3,000 lb. limit, no Packards, but a vintage MG race car, be pretty classy.
3,600 Ib.is the bed limit according to the website, which seems crazy given that little 2.5 Diesel
Do you mean a Hummer EV would fall through this platform. Maybe it would not be a bad deal because you could get rid of both.
The rear is floaty hydropneumatics too; there’s a photo in the ad of it down on its hunkers.
There’s a company in the Netherlands that males pretty much any variation of Citroen car transporter you need, all based on large hydropneumatic cars – DS, CX and XM.
Red oval?
I assume Red Oval is Peterbuilt
Anyone that would haul their car to a show, especially on something as ugly as this, gets zero respect from me.
This is one of the photos I came across. This would be perfect to have a little 2CV on the back. I kind of like it, but then again I like things that are different.
Why all the description of DS’s when this vehicle is a CX?
It’d be ideal for the transport of another of the Lane Museum’s inhabitants; my pal Norry’s racer is in there. It was built in Scotland rather than England, incidentally.
https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/citroen-2cv-race-car-1980/
By the term “car hauler” I imagine open wheel racer or maybe a lotus seven. Regardless you are going to have to explain this rig to every single person you come in contact with. Assured it won’t be worth your time. Myself? I think it’s pretty cool.
When I went to the SCCA Runoffs last October,I was saddened
to see that very few of the competitors hauled their cars on an open-
trailer.
I would hope that the buyer of this is a person who owns various
Citroens,& would use it to haul their cars to the shop when repairs were
needed.
Isn’t that the car Jeremy Clarkson used to build his caravan on Top Gear?
LS swap!…LOL! On American roads, this thing would be powerful enough to haul Geo Metros or 2CVs with that laughably small engine. Even so, I’ll take a Ram with a Cummins as a car or bike hauler.
As far as the hearse goes, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of these ugly things….
One person’s exotic dream does not make any other person’s logical decision to throw good money to the wind.
The late California Citroen expert Jerry Hathaway built something similar using an SM, to haul his 200-mph SM to record runs. Last time I saw it was in the Mullin Collection’s Citroen display a few years ago. Incidentally, the Mullin museum announced today that it is closing.
I like the idea of a good looking tow rig setup. That is why I used a series 1 Jaguar XJ6 ( BRG ) to to my ( red ) Maserati Barchetta 3500 replicas all over the wast coast. I had no desire to drive a p/u did not own one. And the Barchetta was light enough ( 1,600 lbs ) that the Jaguar worked great. And it made obe hell of impression where it went.
According to the Dutch numberplate on the front, this Citroën CX was first registered in 1980 instead of 1988.
I love it!