Citroën designed a car in the shape of a pyramid in the 1980s

At the Paris Motor Show at the time, the French manufacturer presented the Karin.

Photo by: Citroën

By: Eleonora Lilli

Nov 16, 2024 at 2:49am ET

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Concept cars sometimes have highly original shapes. Such is the case of the Citroën Karin, a car with a unique pyramid shape. It was designed by Trevor Fiore, an Italian-born designer who studied in Britain and went on to become head of Citroën's styling department.

Its name refers to the word 'car' in English, and the Italian word 'carina'. It was presented at the Paris Motor Show in 1980, but was never produced.

Butterfly wing doors

The Citroën Karin belongs to an era when designers could give free rein to their imagination and come up with daring solutions. The Karin's roof, for example, is one of the smallest ever made, the size of an A3 sheet of paper.

Citroën Karin

The pyramid shape houses two doors that open upwards in the shape of butterfly wings. In Citroën's imagination, this was a middle-class car, an original-looking coupé with a very slim profile and a particularly low centre of gravity.

The engine was a 4-cylinder, combined with front-wheel drive and the hydropneumatic suspension typical of Citroën until 2015 (after 60 years of history, the latest evolution of the system, Hydractiva III, ended its life cycle with the C5).

Citroën Karin 1980

Lots of buttons and ultra-modern screens

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The Karin's cockpit is very interesting because it is particularly futuristic. It can accommodate up to three people, arranged in an original way: the driver is positioned in the centre and the two passengers just behind him on the sides, a style reminiscent of the McLaren F1 released more than ten years later.

Citroën Karin, the interior

Photos of : Citroën

There are plenty of buttons everywhere, including on the door panels, which incorporate screens. On the dashboard, on the other hand, there's a screen containing a computer that indicates the state of the road and the state of the vehicle. This was avant-garde for its time, and is very common today.