The company had to take superior lighting systems that they had developed and “dumb them down” for North America. The reason why is quite revealing…
Citroën began importing cars into Canada and the United States in the late 1960s which have three basic headlamps: standard low-beam; standard high-beam and high-beam headlamps of much higher intensity, which also turn with the steering wheel to allow you to look around comers as you drive. Anyone driving with these lamps is instantly amazed. They simply make so much sense.
When American auto-makers saw the Citroën lighting system and saw the potential for such an innovation in their own cars, they acted instantly. They had them banned from North America and had them made illegal. It is in the code book: “No private vehicle may have an external light whose direction is controlled from the interior of the car.”
The law was aimed at prohibiting external spotlights, but Citroën’s system defied the law also. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tested the Citroën system, made a few comments about its superiority and then banned it! The agency asked the U.S. auto industry how long it would take them to develop such a lighting system. They said not until 1975.
Whenever the US makes such a ruling, it applies as well in Canada as Canada has a habit of rubber-stamping the US rules to allow for efficiency in manufacturing in Canadian auto industry branch plants. It ended up that as of Jan. 1, 1971, any new Citroën brought into Canada or the U.S. had to have a modified straight-ahead lighting system with no covering shield.