CITROEN DS - the 1955 Motor show sensation

CITROEN DS

the 1955 Motor show sensation

At the London Motor Show in 1955 there was the new 2.4 litre compact saloon from Jaguar, the latest MGA sports car and Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, plus a Sunbeam Rapier coupé with whitewall tyres. But the star of the show had to be the vehicle innocuously billed as the ‘2-Litre Six-Seater saloon’ on the Citroën stand. For the previous 21 years their staple offering had been the Traction Avant range.

Citroën had been working on their Voiture à Grande Diffusion (VGD) project since the 1930s. By 1950 the prototype was renamed ‘Projet D’ and in 1955, the DS was launched at the Paris Salon; by the end of that day Citroën had taken over 12,000 orders. 

It was the DS styling that caused the initial sensation, for even in repose it looked like a basking shark.

Variations included The Safari

A beautiful coupe 

And the most bizarre variant, The Reactor

The Reactor was a custom aluminum show car designed by Gene Winfield and completed in 1965. It was based on a 1956 Citroën DS chassis and powered by a Chevrolet Corvair engine. It gained fame when it was renamed The Jupiter 8 and appeared in Star-trek as well as being driven by Eartha Kitt in a Batman film.

I have featured the Citroen DS in my DI Sonny Russell crime novel, Blood on the Tide, when his French opposite number, Inspecteur Guillaume Bruissement has one on trial. I have also written one into Blood on the Strand, soon to be released.

Finally, a Tissier van was developed in the 1960s. 

I've researched this wonderfully futuristic looking vehicle but can find very little information about it. If anyone can supply more details I'd be delighted, so please contact me.