We can’t help but feel every form of motorsport was cooler in the ’90s. F1 was in the prime of its howling V10 era, endurance racing was filled with wild homologation specials, the world of touring cars was defined by two-wheeling Super Tourers and Class 1 DTM monsters, and rallying had four-wheel drive Group A heroes and screaming F2 kit cars.
Then there was rally raid. This is still a pretty cool motorsport today, but back then, when a big-budget car company entered, it often felt the need to make its beastly, dune-conquering mid-engined off-road racer resemble a normal family car. You had the Peugeot 405 T16, the SEAT Toledo Marathon, and even a Lada Samara that hid the engine from a Porsche 911 Carrera and the four-wheel drive system from a flipping 959.
Citroen ZX Rallye Raid - interior
Citroen contributed to this glorious trend too, with this, the ZX Rallye Raid. Campaigned throughout the early ’90s, this thing had absolutely zilch to do mechanically with the roadgoing ZX, the company's family hatch of the era.
The engine, a 2.5-litre turbocharged four-pot making around 300bhp, sits in the middle of the car (spoiler alert: the normal ZX was not mid-engined). That power, naturally, is sent to all four wheels, and it has locking diffs on both axles. And the bodywork? Carbon kevlar. Again, the regular ZX was definitely, unequivocally not made of carbon kevlar.
Citroen ZX Rallye Raid - side
This particular car is chassis C05, and entered three Dakar Rallies on the bounce between 1991 and 1993. It didn’t win any of them, but it did finish all three, which is an achievement in itself when it comes to the Dakar.
It’s now going up for sale at Broad Arrow’s inaugural Villa d’Este auction on the very un-Dakar-Rally-like shores of Lake Como between 24 and 25 May, although it’s not the first time this particular car’s changed hands lately.
Citroen ZX Rallye Raid - front
A couple of years ago, it was sold by UK-based specialty dealer Girardo and Co., and before that, it had undergone a full restoration. At some point since its last sale, it’s been returned from its later Total livery to the yellow Camel scheme it raced in right at the beginning of its career. We feel duty bound to remind you that smoking isn’t cool, but smoking-related liveries most definitely are.
It’s estimated to go for somewhere between €475,000 and €525,000 (around £400,000 to £450,000) when it goes back on sale in Como in May. That’s a whole lot for a Citroen ZX, but of course, this isn’t really a Citroen ZX at all. Either way, we want it. Badly.
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