Greg Long, who lives near Seattle, wanted a set of european headlights for his 1973 US spec front end SM. Actually Greg bought his SM in Vancouver Canada a couple of years ago, and as luck would have it he recently heard of three more north of the border, this time in Victoria on Vancouver Island. One trip was all it took to convince him to buy the lot even though he just needed the one set of euro headlights. (Canadian SMs had euro headlights for 1971 and 72, but switched to the US open face, 4 round headlight set up in in 1973.) The rest he figured he would put on Craiglist looking to make a sale, but they were quickly spotted and posted on bringatrailer.com. Quite a bit of discussion has ensued. Here’s the Craiglist ad:
3, yes 3, Citroën SM’s!
I bought 3 SM’s in Victoria, BC Canada that have all been sitting for 10 plus years. All in different levels of restoration/parts car. I will describe them to the best of my knowledge below. All are 5 speeds. ALL THE CARS ARE IN VICTORIA AND WOULD NEED TO BE PICKED UP FROM THERE.
SM 1. This is probably the best one. I had it flat-bedded to a shop in Victoria how’s owner use to own an SM, and took care of the few that ‘lived’ in Victoria for years. He said he’d try to get it going. He called the other day to say that he got it running but that one side of the engine has bad compression 0, 5, 30 and that someone botched up wiring under the steering wheel so they had to ‘hot wire’ it to get going. This car is complete with what looks to be an OK brown leather, has glass over the USA headlights. The car has rust spots around the door handles, and some trim and a couple patches on the roof where a leak in the building it was in dripped on it for years, I guess. It is in dark silver with blue California plates (supposedly was a CA car for most of its life).
SM 2. This car looks to have perfect black leather; and is in primer. Trim in boxes. The engine looks to be completely rebuilt as it’s perfectly clean. The previous owner told me it was rebuilt but the restoration never finished. It had a euro swiveling-light front end BUT THESE DO NOT COME WITH THE SET OF CARS… they are for my ’73 I have in Seattle.
SM 3. Engine is in boxes all around the car. Has an OK black leather interior but it’s been ripped out of the car. Doesn’t seem rusty at all. There are TONS of parts everywhere in the garage! This car has the euro lights AND THESE COME WITH THE TRIO OF SM’s (and, in themselves are very valuable…)
So, for the right person it’s a treasure trove and I bet at least one great car could be put together, with tons of spares, or two cars, etc… I’m not ‘that guy’ especially as I have too many projects and no place for them.
And the price of SM’s are finally climbing so one might be able to even make some dough on these amazing machines. I’ve attached a photo of Hagerty’s latest price guide. This recent car on eBay made $54k without selling; and this one sold from $54k on BringaTrailer — and neither had the very sought-after European swiveling covered headlights.
So, to jump to the chase, I’d like best offer on US$15k for all 3 cars minus the one set of euro lights that are already in boxes.
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And here’s the bringatrailer listing complete with some rather amusing comments:
https://bringatrailer.com/2016/03/25/troublesome-trio-three-citroen-sm-projects-for-15k/#comments