It was only when buying our XM (almost new, and from our local and trusted Citroen dealer) in the UK back in Jan'99 that we discovered what a slight oddity it was. First registered on 1 Dec 1998, it just didn't tally with the sales brochure. It was all there, 1200mi on the clock, but . . . no CD changer, no cruise, and, oddest of all, a grey suede and leather interior! We rapidly did a bit of detective work before buying (almost £10k below list price), and discovered that S472LTR was built on 21 June 1996, and was one of thirty XMs that Slough brought into the UK shortly afterwards. It was, apparently, stored under cover until being passed on to a South of England dealer two years later. A regular customer (a new Citroen every 12 months!) let them down, and so the car was finally first registered on 1.12.98 to the dealer. Four weeks later it had done 1200 miles. By the second week of January, it was ours, with CD changer, cruise and towbar all thrown in.
That was January 1999. Since then it has provided daily commuter transport for my wife, and whisked us all over the place on business and holiday, often with caravan in tow - Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, Spain and Portugal.
We both retired and moved home to Andalusia in 2004, and the XM came with us, now re-plated (at unbelievable expense), and having undergone quite a few interesting repairs and mods. These, I promise, will be the subject of some other posts.
Chris Gregory