Citroen DS

Citroën DS at a glance

Development and production history

The DS came after about 18 years of development. Its styling is credited to Flaminio Bertoni and its engineering to André Lefèbvre; the hydropneumatic suspension was developed by Paul Magès. The name is a play on words: "DS" reads like déesse, French for "goddess", and the cheaper ID that followed reads like idée, "idea".

The launch at the 1955 Paris Motor Show became one of the best-known in the industry. Citroën took 743 orders in the first 15 minutes and about 12,000 on the first day; by the end of the ten-day show it held about 80,000 deposits. English Wikipedia notes that the first-day record stood for more than 60 years. The new car was not cheap: the DS19 of 1955 cost 65% more than the Traction Avant it replaced.

The range widened quickly. The cheaper and less powerful ID made the car more affordable, and the estate arrived in 1958. Henri Chapron built the convertible from autumn 1960 to summer 1971, about 1,400 of which were sold, as well as special saloons such as the Prestige. The luxurious Pallas trim arrived in 1965. In 1967 Robert Opron redesigned the front for the 1968 model year with directional headlamps that turned with the steering, described in English Wikipedia as the first adaptive headlights on a mass-market car.

Hydropneumatic suspension and other engineering

The heart of the DS is its high-pressure hydraulic system. The hydropneumatic suspension levels the car automatically, and the driver can adjust the ride height. English Wikipedia gives working pressures of 13–15 MPa in one section and 17.2 MPa (2,490 psi) in another. The same system also operated the clutch, the gearbox and the brakes, and the DS had power steering, which the early ID lacked.

The front brakes were inboard discs, mounted next to the gearbox, and English Wikipedia calls them the first successful use of disc brakes on a mass-produced car. The wheels were held by a single central bolt. The standard DS used the four-speed BVH hydraulic gearbox: the driver selected the gears by a lever, but there was no clutch pedal. The ID had a conventional manual gearbox and manual steering. A five-speed manual arrived in 1970 and a three-speed Borg-Warner automatic in September 1971.

US cars were sold with fixed headlamps instead of the directional units. The DS also had a famous moment of safety: on 22 August 1962 President Charles de Gaulle survived an assassination attempt at Petit-Clamart when his DS, hit by bullets and with two punctured tyres, still escaped at full speed.

Engines and drivetrain

All engines drive the front wheels. A US-market DS of 1969 with 86 kW (115 hp) is listed at US$4,170; the ID19 of 1959 cost US$2,833 in the United States. Our power converter translates the hp DIN and SAE figures of the period into kW and PS.

Citroën DS specifications

Production by year

Output rose quickly after a slow start: 69 cars were completed in 1955. The best years were 1966 (99,561), 1967 (101,904), 1970 (103,633) and 1973 (96,990). Only 847 were built in 1975, when Citroën had already stocked about eight months of Safari estates to bridge the gap until the CX estate arrived in the autumn. Of the total of 1,455,746, the Paris plant at Quai de Javel built 1,330,755; the rest came from assembly lines in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Portugal and Yugoslavia (Koper, in today's Slovenia).

Variants and derivatives

Rallying and recognition

The DS was a strong long-distance rally car thanks to its suspension. It won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1959 and again in 1966, the second win being controversial. Pauli Toivonen won the 1000 Lakes Rally in 1962, Robert Neyret the Rallye du Maroc in 1969 and 1970. In the 1974 London–Sahara–Munich World Cup Rally a DS beat more than 70 other cars, of which only five finished.

Classic & Sports Car named the DS the most beautiful car of all time after a poll of 20 designers, and Automobile Magazine put it fifth in its 2005 list of the "100 Coolest Cars". More about the company, from the Traction Avant to the present, is in our history of Citroën; its small sister is covered in the Citroën 2CV story.

Photo gallery