My earliest memory of being in a car was when I was a wee queenling. My mother's parents, and my grandparents I was closest too, had two cars, one being a vintage Citroen DS. Matter of fact my grandfather learned to drive very late in life, just to able to own and drive a Citroen. I remember enjoying being in the car when we went for rides, but it was much later that I really remember just how chic, and what style they had till I was much older and couldn't recall seeing other cars like it. Girls, when I say this car was chic and fun, it was just that. The car sat for years when he stopped driving. Even after sitting for years, the car started right up when my uncle took the car at the urging of my grandmother, who was razing the detached garage, to make way for a sunroom and more garden space a couple years after my grandfather's passing. How I wished I had that car now. I would totally drive it daily.
My grandfathers Citroen DS in Belleview Park where they lived.
When the Citroen Ds was unveiled before an astonished crowd at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, the world had never seen anything like it. The DS captured the spirit of Citroen, innovative, daring, spacious, style and dripping with haute couture and Gallic comfort. The interior was huge and well appointed. Motorist around the world fell in love with the car, and it refused to die till the last 1, 456,115 produced came of the assembly line in 1975. It was a mainstream family car in Europe. And it was a car of choice for everyone from artistic and eccentrics, to businessman, doctors, engineers, and professor to housewives. After the DS was out of production, and Citroen left the American market, there was no comparable replacement in the American showroom that had its retro style.
The features list tends to define what a luxury car is these days. And while classic cars arguably had style and grace, they can't compete when it comes to the bells and whistles of today. But at the time Citroen had offered a lot and was way ahead of its time. It's hydropneumatics, self-leveling suspension and aerodynamic styling, and adjusting headlights. In 2009, a panel of automotive designers named it the most beautiful care ever made. High praise, considering it faced off against the like of Mercedes, Aston Martin, and Jaguar. It was also the first mass-produced car with front disc brakes. The Citroen DS's real party trick was its suspension, though, which was like a magic carpet ride and one of the smoothest rides I can remember in a car. The ride quality was so impressive, Rolls -Royce borrowed it for its own fleet.
While regarded today as a technical masterpiece...it's beyond me why car makers now can't still have the amazing and convenient technology we now have, yet bring the style, grace and chicness back into one car. These days one can barely tell the difference between car makes anymore.
