Citroen DS Inside Concept Gets Interior Sneak Peak

We're still disappointed with the direction the Citroen DS Inside Concept as it indicates the DS3 will be a premium compact but does little justice to the original DS. Inside, it pays even less homage. More »

Citroën DS, Aston Martin Lagonda Down On The New York City Street

This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. What would you drive in Manhattan? Voodoojoo knows! More »

DOTS-O-Rama Sunday, San Francisco Edition: Citroën DS21

This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. Citroëns survive everywhere! More »

Classic & Sports Car Magazine Names Citroën DS "Most Beautiful Car Of All Time"

Classic & Sports Car Magazine announced they've chosen the Flaminio Bertoni-designed 1955 Citroën DS as the 'Most Beautiful Car Of All Time.' It's certainly one of our favorites, but is it really the most beautiful? More »

2011 Citroen DS3: Is This It?

Could this be the Citroen DS3 due to debut at next month's Geneva Motor Show? If it is, color us disappointed. More »

Even A Hydropneumatic Suspension Couldn't Hold All These Vintage Citroen Brochures

Finding the Peugeot 403 brochure was nice, but we need a total overdose of vintage French car brochures! Fortunately, Mort555 came to the rescue, by sending us a tip about this Dutch site with dozens of beautifully scanned Citroën brochures from the 1950s through the 1980s. France, Spain, Finland, Germany, Italy- if you could buy Citroëns there, the brochure is probably in this site. [Citrobe.org] More »

Rocket Scientist Citroen D Special Awaits Blast-Off In Virginia

We always love to see French cars down on the North American street, especially when they're Citroëns. Chimuel caught this early-70s D Special in Deltaville, Virginia, and had camera at the ready. Note the NASA parking permit. More »

Rocket Powered Flying Citroen DS, All Our Memes Are Belong to Fantômas

We've never heard of what is a apparently a classic French character named Fantômas, but apprently he's a master of disguise and miscreant extraordinaire. More important to us though, in a 1964 flick, he drove a flying, rocket-powered Citroen DS. As we can see in this chase sequence between a Mini Moke and the DS in question, the transformation is brilliantly controlled through the HVAC controls and lets the creepy gray-faced anti-hero escape without a scratch. Let's just hope an underinformed passenger doesn't try to warm up the cabin in thick traffic. More »

Project Car Hell: Abarth A112 or Carrera Panamericana Citroen?

It looks like the Jalopnik readership did some agonized soul-searching and decided to go with the 308/Esprit combo over the somewhat imcomplete 365 at a 7-to-3 ratio in yesterday's Cheap Ferrari Edition Choose Your Eternity poll. But an Italian car versus an Anglo-Italian 2-fer brings to mind an interesting PCH dilemma: what happens when you pit a geeky-yet-cool Italian car against a geeky-yet-cool French car? No dreamworld Quattroporte versus SM here; instead it's a pair of cars that don't cost all that much and can even be driven... straight to Hell (i.e., your garage). More »

You Can Bring Your Crumpled Citroens To Hanzel's

With all this talk about Citröens around here, it's sad that I hardly ever get to see them in real life. That's why it was great to discover that there's a shop specializing in Citröen repair in downtown Oakland, just a few miles from Alameda. Commenter VWMiniSpeedster's great-grandfather opened the shop in 1918, and the family also owned a dealership selling Citröens, Panhards, Morgans, and Lloyds during the 1950s. Nowadays they still fix the old French machinery and have quite the collection on the premises. Make the jump for more photos, a description of the shop's history, and (for you wannabe 24 Hours of LeMons contestants) a chance to get a deal on a potential race car! More »

Ferrari 308 GTB vs. Citroen DS

From the mind of Davey G... First of all, yes, Herr Johnson and I actually have conversations about things like this. A lot. Constantly, actually. So you can think of this as settling a bet for us. Also, some of you may recall the last time we put the 308 up to a vote it handily beat out the Lamborghini Jalpa by a 20% margin. But that was then. This time the budget Ferrari is facing the heavyweight opponent of the French automotive scene, L'Goddess. So, which will it be? Mid-engine or hydro-pneumatic? Single spoke steering wheel or pop up lights? A Malaise Era Ferrari, or the pride of the French nation? And if you want to prevent Questions of the Day like this in the future, email tips@jalopnik.com with the subject "QOTD" and your suggestion. More »

Frankfurt Auto Show: Citroen XM Exclusive Down on the Straße

This Citroen XM Exclusive caught our jet-lagged eye on our way down to the river, where we also caught a glimpse of das boot. The 5-door XM packed a 3.0L 24-Valve DOHC V-6 or 2.5 TD turbo set atop Citroen's signature nitrogen springing - also known as Hydractive suspension. The computer-controlled liquid suspension has a compliance six times greater than suspensions made of schteel, and is driver adjustable. Had things gone better for this descendant of the mighty Citroen DS, a great deal more mechanics would be troubleshooting hydraulics instead of replacing the occasional strut. We're still looking for a good frankfurter.

The Toyota Prius — Is it the Ronnie James Déesse?

When I was twenty, I studied in Germany. Bonn, to be exact. I had a friend there named Kai who loved techno and had just received his first car, some sort of Citroën hatchback. It was red, and he hoped someday to buy an Audi with an S in front of its numeral. But at that point, he had what we all ended up calling Kai's Rote Heiße Citroën des Liebes. I don't remember the model, but a couple of days before I met Kai, I'd seen a 2CV parked on the street. It was covered in bad EKG tape stripes, Laney amplifier decals and sported a giant die-cut Savatage decal across the rear window. I knew immediately and instinctively that Kai's car was not a patch on its forebear. Some may decry the Deuche as a rip of Hitler's Beetle with the drivetrain at the opposite end, but the car that debuted in 1955, spawned an obsessive geek-cult of wack-ass masochists and occupied the opposite end of the French motoring spectrum from the plebeian flip-windowed runabout was about as revolutionary as they came in those days. Having run into a DS on the street a few days ago, I got to thinking. Does the car have a modern-day equivalent anywhere in the world today? And if it does what could it be? The only answer I could come up with is the Toyota Prius. More »

We Like Our Citroëns Like We Like Our Brassieres: D-Series

If you watch this Quentin Wilson-presented clip on the history of the Citroën DS and don't come away wanting one, you obviously have about as much soul as the members of 311. Part Deux after the jump. More »

The Goddess of Tenth Street

Yesterday we took in a showing of Paris, je t'aime at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento. Despite the preponderance of trees in California's seat of government, Sackamenna is not exactly Gay Paree, nevertheless, our Francophile self was flabbergasted when we walked down 10th Street for a cup of tea and saw this battered old DS Safari — complete with specific yellow headlamps — parked among far less spectacular examples of workaday, humdrum Central-Valley-typical vehicles. Armed, as we were, only with our camera phone, the shots fall short of the Henri Cartier-Bresson mark, but nevertheless, there she is, hunkered down on her hydropneumatic suspension, DS/ID shop manual and a jug of Prestone in the back. "April in Paris" was playing in the café. When we walked back out, she was gone, a fleeting flash of tarnished sophistication in a flat, hot burg gone subdivision a la crackerbox. More »

Craig's List Find: 1971 Citroen Safari Wagon

Courtesy of our beer und bike buddy Basem, this DS Break can be yours for the not so low (but maybe so) price of $15,000. First of all, it's the only non-Peugeot 405 French station wagon in America we can think of. Second, all the hydrolic spheres have been recently replaced. Thirdly, the rear seats are a trip. Remember on old Ford wagons how the way back seats faced each other? Same thing here, only they are off set for some legroom. Even so, the Safari still seats 8. And finally, it is a Goddess, with the radder than all get out hydropneumatic suspension and everything else that makes the DS one of the coolest cars of all time. Always remember, ugly is in the beholder's eye. – Jonny Lieberman More »

Caine Caning It: The Marseille Contract

We've never actually seen The Marseille Contract, a 1974 thriller starring Michael Caine. Nevertheless, we have now seen this playful car chase starring Caine, Maureen Kerwin, an Alfa Romeo Montreal, a 911 and a DS. And what more could one want from a Thursday afternoon? – Davey G. Johnson More »

The Joys of Hydropneumatic Suspension: Day of the Jackal

Charles de Gaulle was a tough old bastard and archetypically French, in that he pissed off everyone, yet managed to become a beloved figure. One of the most badass things the General ever said was a remark to a friend upon the execution of Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, the man who led his execution plot depicted at the beginning of Day of the Jackal: The French need martyrs... They must choose them carefully. I could have given them one of those idiotic generals playing ball in Tulle prison. I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They'll be able to make a martyr of him. He deserves it." Meanwhile, he credits his escape from the roadside ambush to the hydropneumatic suspension of the Citroën DS, which allowed his car to escape despite having two tires blown out by gunfire. And you wonder why the serious gangstas in South Central roll hydro-style. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Citroen SM

Sometimes we propose a car for our Fantasy Garage because of its overwhelming, world-scorching performance. Other times a car gets the nod on the strength of its engine. Or historical significance. Or fond teenage memories. Or maybe just because it is so damn pretty. And in the case of last week's Ford GT, all of the above. This week's nominee, the Citroen SM, is picked on the strength of its owners. Yeah, exactly, its owners. Brezhnev had an SM. As did both Cheech and Chong. Leno still has one. Idi Amin had seven, while the Shah of Iran had but one. So did Lee Majors, Johan Cruyff, Graham Greene and Mike Hailwood. No less a man than Lorne Greene drove a Citroen SM. Still not impressed? What if I told you that His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God drove an SM? That's what I thought. Though, I hope I had you at Idi Amin. More »

Jalopnik Book Preview: Roland Barthes's "Mythologies"

Back before Ruthless Reviews imploded and became the derivative mess it is today, we were pretty funny. The site was so freewheeling that we were going to start reviewing films we hadn't watched. We never did, but we should have. Now I'm advocating a book I haven't read, yet. I promise you that I will. Why? Well aside from being a Red at heart, who can resist a chapter about "The Sexual Politics of the Domestic?" Certainly not moi. Why do I mention Barthes's book on the fanboy site that exists in the form of jalopnik.com? Cause our favorite French post-structuralist (or is that semiotician?) tosses in a section about "Technocratic Icons of Modernization." Which is Ivory Tower shorthand for our favorite topic: cars. Specifically, one of our favorite cars, the Citroen DS. Jump for a little bit more. More »

Eiffel Tower High: Surreal Citroen ID Spot

What happens when nothing happens? When a cartoon angel and an oddly-happy fish out of water suspended by a balloon preside over a ploughed field traversed by a red minor Goddess to unsettling strains of something ominous is about to happen music? Hydropneumatic suspension is enough to drive Detroit-bred auto-types insane. This spot is enough to make us run out of the cafe screaming "Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!" – Davey G. Johnson More »

Citroen Celebrates 50 Years, Transforms Into Birthday Suit

Citro n celebrated the 50th birthday of the DS at the International Cotemporary Art Fair (FIAC) in London last year, and for the exhibition, "The DS is a Work of Art", the Frenchies decided to try and show the artistic dimension of the automobile. What better way to do that then by making it a Transformer? Although maybe that's just us who think that — but others must like it too, because they've brought it to Paris for the show this year — and now we're bringing it to you in the video above, and the picture from the press release below the jump. More »

Diamond-Plate DSamino!

It's no secret that we love the Citro n DS. But despite the fact that Spaniards refer to it as the Tiburon (as Hyundai once taught us, it's Spanish for "shark"), it has always struck us as a fairly feminine car. So how to make a Goddess more butch than Pallas Athena? Do what the guys out in the 909 do and add diamond-plate. Like, a whole lot of diamond-plate. And, of course, turn it into a truckcar. The Motorpasion boys stumbled across this and knew we'd be all over it like a rural Frenchman on a plate of donkey sausage et fromage. More »

Tissier: Purveyors of Citroenian Lunacy

Sure, every nation has its quirks. Americans are fat, Brits are effete, Canadians talk funny, Italians are randy, etc. But the French? The French are just totally, inscrutably weird. Just look at their cars. Then look at their custom cars. Tissier, the company that built the flatbed DS we posted on earlier, did all manner of crazy crap to already strange cars. We mean, just look at this thing! It's a half-cocked amalgam of a UFO, a hearse and a 1970s stabbin' cabin! Who does that? Who? We need one. [Thanks to Antoine for the tip.] More »

The Longest French ElCo Yet: The Deessamino

Reader Mattias, who always signs his comments, wasn't so impressed with our Citro n CX Camino post. But only because he knew of a DS Camino that was even better. In fact, this thing's not so much an ElCo as it is the USS Forrestal with front-wheel drive. A quad-cab, eight-wheeled Goddess flatbed? Fo' shizzle, our beloved nizzles. Regards, Mattias, regards. More »

Who Doesn't Want a DS? Citroen's Flying Saucer

We love old Citro ns. And while our heart lies with the goofy, proletarian 2CV, the DS was a helluva piece of work for its time, what with its hydropneumatic suspension and styling that look ripped from the cover of a dime-store sci-fi novel. Bear in mind the car debuted a mere decade after the cessation of the Second War, and the French managed to come up with it while we were busy inventing the smallblock Chevy V8. Wait, which one's still in production? More »