ROME – The car world loses one of the design geniuses: Robert Opron, historic head of the Citroen style center who from 1962 to 1973 animated the French house with unique cars, from the AMI8 to the GS, from the Citroën Maserati to the CX.
Born in 1932 in France, Robert Opron passed away on March 29 last. Moving very young to Africa, between the Ivory Coast and Algeria, until the age of twenty, when he returned to his homeland to study architecture. Then after a period of work in Simca in 1962 he entered the magical world of Citroën, called by Flaminio Bertoni who was then the head of the Brand’s Style Center. Your first job? It was the translation into technical drawings of the new front of the DS with faired headlights, sculpted by Bertoni in ’64 and then produced in ’67 … The genius had gone into action
“On the sudden death of Bertoni, in 1965, – they explain to the French house – Opron took his place and was able to take care of ongoing projects. From his pencil will come iconic models that have marked the history of Citroën, starting with Citroën AMI8, heir to the AMI6, presented in 1969 and produced until 1978 in the sedan version (and until the following year in the Break version); then Citroën GS, presented at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show, elected “Car of the Year 1971” and produced until 1986 in different versions, including the Break and the GSA, in about 2,500,000 units; followed by the Citroën SM from 1970, a masterpiece of aerodynamic profiling, a grand touring coupé that combines comfort, beauty and great performance, and finally, the streamlined Citroën CX, presented in 1974, a car modeled in the wind tunnel and devoted to efficiency, characterized by tapered lines as well as a new interior design “.
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