Vehicle Description
This vehicle is located at our Zonhoven Belgium Facility and is
eligible for importation to the United States. Please contact us
for more information. Price includes delivery to our Aiken, SC
facility and all applicable title fees, insurance, bonds, duties
and transportation charges. Vehicle will be sold with clean and
clear South Carolina title. 1963 Citroen DS 19 restoredEarth was
invaded in October 1955 when the otherworldly Citroen DS 19 made
its debut at the Paris Motor Show. The DS was a large and luxurious
saloon, with a front-midengine, front-drive layout. The
spacecraft-like fuselage was shaped of removable/repairable
aluminum panels and a fiberglass top. The car fairly bristled with
innovation, including the famous hydropneumatic self-leveling
suspension. Basically it's a French low rider.The Citroen DS is
technically unsurpassed, completely inimitable and is a contender
for the most beautiful car of all time. Years after its
introduction at the Paris Auto Show, the futuristic, perfectly
Gallic Citroen DS 19 retains the ability to wow.The DS was the most
technically gifted automobile of its time and the most
quintessentially modern, in that it scorned all that was familiar
in prewar design-big, exposed wheels, low roofs, strong shoulders
and commanding chrome grilles-in favour of something utterly new,
at least outside the realm of pulp science fiction.The DS was a
front-mid-engine, front-wheel-drive car with rear wheels closer
together than at the front, allowing its sleek, tapering bobtail.
The rears are enclosed in prim fender spats and, above, the
remarkable panoramic greenhouse and fiberglass roof. The DS was a
blaze of unorthodoxy and prescient human-factors design: The
distinctive one-spoke steering wheel; the trendsetting
multidirectional air vents, directed by little wands with plastic
knobs; the turn signals located in chrome nacelles fixed to the
roof for better visibility.Sculptor and designer Flaminio Bertoni
and aviation engineer Andre Lefebvre had been working on the design
at Citroen even before World War II, but the DS was a pure product
of the moment. While many cars evoked aeronautic forms-the Rocket
Age wonderments of GM or Ghia-bodied Chryslers-the DS is the only
car that ever looked like it could fly.The soul of the DS is in its
hovercraft-like stance, attainable thanks to the hydro-pneumatic
self-leveling independent suspension, designed by Paul Mages. This
complex suspension of hydraulics and pressurized nitrogen, held in
the car's distinctive spherical accumulators, was also what gave
the DS its uncanny, gliding ride.The French structuralist Roland
Barthes wrote that it was 'obvious' the DS had 'fallen from the
sky.' But you couldn't call it avant-garde because nobody, not even
Citroen, followed in the DS's conceptual path. Even though Citroen
built and sold about 1.5 million of the cars, the DS remains a kind
of a one-and-done, design-wise. In a 2009 poll of top automotive
designers, Classic & Sports Car magazine declared the DS 'The Most
Beautiful Car of All Time.'The rack and pinion steering is firm and
reasonably keen for a vintage car. The Citroen's body rolls with
nautical dignity, well damped, while floating above the busily
pumping wheels. Obviously, the DS was designed to conquer the vast
straight-aheads and is less composed with a lot of steering dialed
in. But once at highway speeds, the Citroen rolls out the magic
carpet. The seats are royal, the ride sublime. Few modern cars,
maybe none, are as splendidly comfortable as the DS.Our example
comes from the South of France where she received a restoration a
while ago. Everything is working in perfect order and she is
looking stunning in her divine grey/red combination.
