Va Va Voom

Always nice to unexpectedly spot something a little different when travelling.

I spotted this Citroën DS out my window in St Ives Harbour today. This one, a 1971/72 I believe, was a favourite with some seagulls — one of which didn't like its own reflection in the chrome hubcap, noisily turning the look of it into a golf ball with its beak.

I missed the owner while I dashed round to get a shot or two, so unfortunately no real details available. He'd obviously driven through some rain before its arrival in the harbour, its paint dulled by the salty, sandy rain of Cornish winds.

Fitting, really — when the DS launched in 1955, one journalist quipped that if the French had claimed to capture a UFO in the closing days of WWII, and the DS was what they'd learned from it, nobody would have batted an eye. This one looked less like it fell from the sky and more like it had been dragged through a Cornish hedge, but the shape still stops you in your tracks.

The car was designed by Flaminio Bertoni, an Italian sculptor turned Citroën designer who — much like his earlier work on the 2CV and the Traction Avant — packed the DS with revolutionary ideas.

Best known for its hydraulic, self-levelling suspension, adjustable by the driver to suit different conditions — perfect for these Cornish cobbled streets, I might add.

Less well known are the extras: internal disc brakes (the DS was the first mass-production car to have them), a fibreglass roof to lower the centre of gravity, and directional headlights that swivelled with steering input, added in the late '60s — a first at the time, now standard on most luxury cars. Its equally odd single-spoke steering wheel controlled the lot.

Its transmission would certainly flummox today's drivers — a semi-automatic, clutchless gearbox, with the gear change mounted above the steering rack.

The DS also had twin horns, referred to as town and country (soft and loud), a venetian blind in the rear window, and a speedometer that included an advisory braking distance for the current speed.

A car that, in its day, was the equivalent of today's BMW 5 Series or Mercedes E-Class — seen as a genuinely luxurious ride. Rarer still, the estate or convertible; two versions I'm yet to see in the flesh.

DS was a pun on Déesse, French for Goddess. The French philosopher Roland Barthes leaned into exactly that in his 1957 essay on the car, writing that it had "fallen from the sky" and calling it the automotive equivalent of a Gothic cathedral — "the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists." High praise for a family car.

This particular Goddess, unfortunately, doesn't live up to those expectations anymore — an interior worn and torn, somewhat neglected, and covered with towels for extra comfort. A French charm of a hard life, maybe, or a poor ownership out of the bigger cities. Now someone's joy for its rarity.

After a 20-year run and worldwide sales of over 1.45 million (with 1970 its peak production year, and a reported 12,000 orders taken on the first day it was unveiled at the 1955 Paris Motor Show), it was replaced by the SM and the CX.

Salty, sandy breezes are a classic's worst nightmare, so spying something of this age in these parts is rare.

I'll keep looking before my return.

See you soon.

Keep a look out for an interesting car and let us know.

Philip (The Rascal)

Editor/Creator/Photographer