It’s easy to love multi-million dollar supercar at unimaginable top speed, thousands of horsepowerand many other hyperbolic words, but when people show love to the weirdos of the automotive world, something truly magical happens. Citroën Ami is a perfect example. Meaning “friend” in French, Ami is a miniature City only car It will never be sold in the US, with a top speed of less than 30 mph and an electric-only range of just 40 miles. That didn’t stop the builder from designing a way to fit some adjustable gas springs to the car to rotate. Ami people into Slami.
The front of the Ami looks almost identical to the rear, with rear-hinged doors that open backwards and are almost entirely plastic from the outside in. Unsurprisingly, there are no kits designed to help package the Citroën Ami, so Josh Gresswell of Gresswell’s Custom Shop had to get creative.
The Ami is just under eight feet long, so there’s not a lot of room under the plastic body panels to hide the hardware needed to add air suspension. Gresswell had to get creative, cutting Subaru WRX struts to fit the front suspension, and designing a special mechanism to mount the air springs at the rear of the car. Gresswell says the amount of work that went into this suspension is huge, and a job like this would cost about as much as the Ami itself, so it’s unlikely to be a popular build.
This may seem silly to most people, especially Americans, but it makes me love the cool little Slami even more. Seeing people express their love for their mismatched cars makes me so happy, because it comes from the heart. Not to fit in with the scene, not to show off how rich you are, but because you are passionate about your car. If I see a Citroën Ami being fitted with a chassis, or more accurately, a battery, I will immediately whip out my phone to record it. What’s even more amazing is that Amis can be driven by teenagers without a full driving license in most European cities.
