as a great model for contemporary cars, not just as an idiosyncratic classic?
The one Citroen DS21 I ever got to ride in was still the best engineered and designed car I ever experienced...puny engine and all...bar none.
I know, a lot of persons find Citroens ugly, and they find their pneumatic suspension byzantine, and they find the brake "button" instead of a pedal lacking in feel, and so on, but...
I find them beautiful. I find them sleek. I find them amazingly spacious inside. I find them amazingly comfy.
Persons who complain about the ride being too pillowy and having too much lean have bought into the advertising hype. We've all, Americans, Europeans, and Japanese, been sold a bunch of sizzle about the importance of sports car handling. Designing a car for the street with sports car handling is about as stupid as designing a drip coffee pot that then fills your cup in .00001 seconds. What is the fucking point?!!! I've got time to slowly pore my coffee and savor it. I've also got time to savor the world in my car. If I'm in a city full of rush hour traffic and pot holes, I appreciate the composure of a Citroen as it placidly and under control delivers me across all but open utility trenches. If I'm out in the country, where the scenery is beautiful, let me savor that serenity in a Citroen. For god's sakes don't put me a Land Rover that is inefficient, heavy, and can only take me places a civilized person shouldn't go to anyway.
Many people castigate the French for being difficult and going their own way. I just think they operate more consistently with the enlightenment about many things than many other nations. I know, they've built their share of goof ball stuff, anyone who's ever driven an old Peugeot 504 Estate for any length of time, and I did, knows there just is another way to think about transportation than driving 135 on the autobahn, or driving a Veyron on the San Diego Freeway at 35mph or less most of the time.
I would have owned a Citroen, if I could have ever gotten one repaired in the states. Those DS21s did everything well that a person actually did and it did it analog.
Imagine what that car could be like with up to date traction control and one of the latest diesels. My dream Citroen DS21 would be one that was fully electric, maybe even a fuel cell. Now that the Lithium Ion batteries are starting to come out, I may just buy an old Citroen in a junk yard, put hub-mounted electric motors in her. There's got to be someway to use an electric motor to power the suspension system.
I'm not going to live forever and I've given up waiting for someone to make this car new for our times. Instead I see pieces of shit like the old Dodge Challenger revived. What kind of a world is this, anyway?
Here's
an ID 19 (original version of the 21, with manual tranny -- hence ID) that I would love to have.
http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/classic-car-page.php/carno/45627
SDR again....
As fate would have it, I just saw my latest issue of Automobile magazine and it had a story about a fellow driving a DS21 convertible on a long road trip across the USA. Wow! Bright red and a rag top.
Engineer: Andre Lefebre--elegant grand prix racer who trained under Voisin as an aeronautical engineer; chief engineer (without title) 1933-1958, the genius behind ALL of the Citroen's of his period; supposedly drank only water and champagne; the picture of him in the magazine as a young man indicates one of the handsomest men I have ever seen.
Designer: Flaminio Bertoni--33 years Citroen's designer and almost totally unknown outside of Citroen during his career (Citroen disliked singling out anyone), which spanned--with a break or two--1925 to 1964. The ID-DS series were his babies on the outside.
"on the
outside" ?
Thanks for all that info, of which I was mostly ignorant. I recall coming home from junior high in '56 (?) to see a picture of the new DS in my copy of Motor Trend (Dad was a Time magazine kind of guy) and flipping out. What a form ! And, in retrospect, with the limitation of perfectly flat side glass, too. . .
I always liked the Traction Avant, and was a front-wheel-drive fan after discovering the Cord sedan at the MoMA "Eight Automobiles" show in 1951. The prewar Citroen resembled a chopped and channeled '34 Ford, I thought, and was terribly sexy in that surprisingly fleet British prewar sedan fashion. Later I learned that Andre Citroen and Henry Ford were pals of some sort (?).
The DS
and the ID had identical bodies; the ID had a conventional transmission and clutch. Later the headlights were changed, covered (in Europe) and streamlined but less idiosyncratic.
The 1965 fantasy/comedy "The Tenth Victim" (Andress and Mastroianni) had a DS with a transparent blue top panel -- futuristic ? -- and an E-type roadster.
Here's a clip, with the unforgettable music track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XToiYsBuwfk
This
says DS19 M (for manual ?) -- wouldn't that be an ID19 ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg0K2U1Cp2I&NR=1
The SM was great, but...
my recollection of it was tainted by Burt Reynolds driving it and wrecking it in The Longest Yard.
Regarding DS21 and ID19 bodies, yes, the bodies were the same, but the ID19 had less ornament, simpler wheel covers (just hub caps as I recall) and I believe the DS21, at some point got quad headlights under glass and the headlights turned the same direction as the front wheels. I know the pivoting headlights were found on the SM, too, but I believe they started on the DS21. Don't hold me to any of this, as I'm working from distant memory, and you seem to have an equally fond spot in your heart for these cars, so I will trust you if you correct me.
The links by the way were great. I am this GIANT Marcello Mastrianni fan. He had one of the great mugs of all time in pictures.
Pete1979
I believe that's called a Decapotable. 🙂
Regardless, that grey car in the picture is the most beautiful convertible that was ever made.
It seems utterly improbable, too, because the front of the car looks vaguely like a Shovel Head Catfish, if you've ever caught one.
But it just is fantastically beautiful to my eyes.
In fact, here's the truly peculiar truth. The Citroen is so smooth and shapely and beautiful, I would rather make love to the damn car than to Uma and I like Uma a lot!
P.S.: It was a perfect car for Uma, because her beauty is as equally unconventional as the cars.
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