Norev 2008 Citroen GT Salon de Paris Concept Car White Metallic 1:18

1:18 scale of the GT concept car from the 2008 Paris Auto Show by the premium brand Norev.

Citroen was inundated with requests from potential buyers, demanding that the GT be put into production. Within less than a year of the GT concept being unveiled, Citroen then announced that it would be building a very limited number of road-going editions. Priced at well over a million euros apiece, just half a dozen would be made, with a carbonfibre construction and all the crazy exterior details still intact.

Naturally there would be no fuel cell though; power instead would come from a large V8 supplied by either Ford or GM, with power being transmitted by a paddle shift-activated manual gearbox. With at least 500bhp on tap and rear-wheel drive only, there would be plenty of thrills on offer, but despite Citroen’s assurance that the car would make limited production, things then went strangely quiet…

It has to be borne in mind that the GT started out as a virtual car only, designed solely for driving games. The reality hit later, but when the GT was unveiled in 2008, few details were revealed about the car’s powerplant or drivetrain. As a result, despite its extremely high-tech appearance, just about all of the GT’s technical details were assumed; with this car, Citroen’s focus was on the design, not the details of how the thing would work.

What Citroen did reveal was that the GT was powered by a fuel cell. Bearing in mind that production fuel cells were still reckoned to be several years away at this point, not least because of a lack of refuelling infrastructure, the GT clearly was the stuff of dreams. With a fuel cell generating electricity which then drives electric motors, the GT could have featured drive to the rear wheels only, or to all four. More likely though for such an enthusiast car would be something between the two; an adjustable set up that would have varied the amount of torque going to each corner depending on the grip available, or perhaps even a fully adjustable system, so the driver could set up the car’s dynamics to suit the occasion.

Because the GT’s powertrain was so far into the future, the fitment of a conventional internal combustion engine would have been necessary, but it needn’t have looked any less sensational or gone any less quickly. Indeed, with a 700bhp V8 mounted in the middle, the GT could easily have touched the 200mph that its amazing lines promised.