Words by Dionysis Nanos
Everyone break out your Gameboys and your Walkmans because it’s 1990 and Al Gore hasn’t invented the internet yet. The hottest song according to Billboard is "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips and Hulk Hogan is facing the Ultimate Warrior in a title versus title match at Wrestlemania 6. But something even more shocking was taking place in Europe and more precisely at the city of Rennes in France where Citroen was making the all new ZX. See those in the know understand that Citroen up until that point was that artistic classmate that everyone admired but no one really wanted to be friends with. You look at stuff like the CX and the BX with their swoopy lines and the complicated hydraulic suspension and if you think "Well that’s a bit niche", well you’re not wrong.
Simply put, Citroens were not selling as much as they should have and most importantly the range was lacking. These were two things that made parent company Peugeot sad at the very least, and angry at the very most. In the all important hatchback market Citroen didn’t have anything to go up against the Golf, Astra and Escort, and as such the decision was made. No more hydraulic suspension, no more crazy looks. From now on things would be more sensible and less Citroen, which resulted in the creation of the ZX. People simply didn’t get how it could be a Citroen, but the result was a pretty good car that set the tone for the rest of the 90s Citroen line-up, with the next in line being the Xantia launched in 1993 and… let’s just say that’s a car close to the heart of Motordiction.
After the ZX was launched, the smart people at what was then Peugeot Talbot Citroen, now known as PSA and soon to be Stellantis (is that how you write it?), thought that taking the new car racing would be the perfect advertisement. And they weren’t wrong. You see PSA already had a successful race car. More specifically one of the most successful rally cars of all time, the Peugeot 205 T16. After Group B got cancelled, Peugeot took the not-so-little 205 to rally raids including, but not limited to, the prestigious Paris-Dakar rally. As such they already had everything they needed for a competitive rally machine. They swapped the bodies with something that, at least at first, vaguely resembled the new ZX and after some light changes the ZX Rallye-Raid was born and immediately something special started taking shape.
The interior of the ZX Rallye Raid
To put it simply, the car was dominant. In the seven years it competed (1990 to 1997), it managed to win the Constructor’s title five times with 36 victories in 42 races. They secured a 1-2 finish at their debut in Spain with Ari Vatanen/Bruno Berglund and Jacky Ickx/Christian Tarlin respectively, while the team of Vatanen and Berglund came fourth at that year’s Pharaoh Rally. And that was only the first year!
1991 would see the ZX win the world famous Paris-Dakar rally in the hands of Ari Vatanen and in that year’s Pharaoh Rally, Citroen took over the podium finishing first, second and third! And for those thinking that the rest of the field was just joking about, let me remind you that we’re talking about the golden years of rally raid, with the likes of Mitsubishi, Cagiva and truck manufacturer Tatra all having factory entries, in rallies taking place in extreme conditions in the middle of the desert. 1992 was just as successful with another 1-2-3 finish at that year’s Tunisia rally, while the team of Pierre Lartigue and Michel Périn won the Paris-Moscow-Beijing rally. 1992 was also the first year a wide variant of the ZX was used.
The first iteration of the ZX Rallye Raid, used in 1990 and 1991
In 1993 the ZX, driven by the teams of Pierre Lartigue/ Michel Périn and Timo Salonen/Fred Gallagher (and many others) brought home both the Driver’s and Manufacturer’s Championships for the first time, after a very close battle with Mitsubishi. Second and third places in the Paris-Dakar and wins in the Atlas Rally, the Baja 1000 in Portugal, the Baja Aragon in Spain, the Pharaoh’s Rally in Egypt and the Desert Challenge in the UAE, made Pierre Lartigue the inaugural FIA World Cross Country Rallying Champion. So again, a very successful year for the mighty ZX.
1994 saw the team winning all but one race, but bringing home another pair of world championships, something that would be repeated again in 1995 and 1996, making Pierre Lartigue and Michel Périn four time world champions. Also a newer version of the ZX Rallye Raid was racing at that point, the Evolution 5.
The last iteration of the ZX Rallye Raid, the Evolution 5
1997 saw the ZX bringing home a fifth manufacturer’s title with a 1-2 finish in Tunisia and the Atlas Rally, while Ari Vatanen and Fred Gallagher won the driver’s championship after wins at the Baja Portugal, the UAE Desert Challenge, and at the Master Rally: Paris-Samarkand-Moscow where they were joined at the podium by the team of Pierre Lartigue/Michel Périn for another Citroen 1-2. 1997 also marked the year where the ZX Rallye-Raid would leave the world of rally raid.
When people think about Citroen in motorsport almost all of them will talk about the period of Loeb’s dominance in the WRC, with the Xsara and the C4. The ZX is mostly forgotten nowadays but it shouldn’t be. While the standard car was an acceptable hatchback for its era, the Rallye Raid version was one of the most dominant machines of that period, up there with Williams in F1 and Mitsubishi and Subaru in the WRC. It paved the way for Citroen’s later success in Kit Cars, the WRC and in World Touring Car Championship and that simply makes it one of the very best things to come out of Citroen.