DS Honoured Again as World’s Top Car Designers Pick Their Favourite Designs

On December 31, 2015 Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper published an article by Matt Bubber in Los Angeles where he asked top automotive designers to pick their favourite designs.

The only caveat: their pick had to be from a brand other than their own.  Three chose the Jaguar E-Type making it the winner, but read what Felix Kilbertus, Head of exterior design at Fiat brand, Centro Stile said about the 1955 Citroen DS:

“If I had to choose a single car whose design has inspired me, it would have to be the Citroën DS.  The Bertone Jet, too, is stunning, but the Citroën DS was a totally unique thing.  You had a roof, in 1955, that was done in semi transparent fibreglass, a dashboard that was like a spaceship.  It put the company out of business because it was so crazy advanced.  You could tell the whole story of the automobile by looking at this car.  When you think about how Germany and France approached the postwar situation: Germany had a smooth highway system designed to move troops; the French had a big network of small, rougher roads.  So the French built cars that could cope with these rough roads, like the DS.  The Germans eventually won, building cars with stiff suspension and big power.  But the DS was really interesting solution to an infrastructure problem.”

Small wonder why DS values are rising and it is becoming a ‘chic’ and coveted in-demand classic investment.