Citroën DS
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object. It is obvious that the new Citroën has fallen from the sky inasmuch as it appears at first sight as a superlative object."--Mythologies (1957) by Roland Barthes |
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The Citroën DS (also known as Déesse, or Goddess, after the punning initials in French) is an executive car that was produced by the French manufacturer Citroën between 1955 and 1975. Citroën sold nearly 1.5 million D-series during its 20 years of production. The DS is well-known for its futuristic, aerodynamic body design, styled by the Italian sculptor and industrial designer Flaminio Bertoni, and for its innovative technology, including its hydropneumatic self-leveling suspension system.
The DS advanced the achievable standards in terms of ride quality, roadholding, handling and braking in an automobile. The DS came in third in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, recognizing the world's most influential auto designs. Winner and second place went to the Ford Model T and the Mini.
The DS posited France's relevance in the Space Age, during the global race for technology of the Cold War. Structuralist philosopher Roland Barthes, in an essay about the car, said that it looked as if it had "fallen from the sky".
