Iconic Cars: The original Citroen DS

The original Citroen DS Brake Pedal......is actually something called a mushroom button. It isn't even a pedal. Really. As exotic and as unreal as how it looks inside and out. Note that you also have a tiny little stick as an accelerator pedal too. The 'normal' looking pedal you see on the left is the DS' park brake. The rest of the interior is also cool. Note the single spoke steering wheel, column mounted gear shift (4 or 5 speed manual, 3 speed automatic or 4 speed semi-auto) and an actually modern looking dashboard for a car that was first produced in 1955. In fact, it was so futuristic, Citroen kept on producing it till 1975.

The exterior is also a marvel. The overall shape is stunning and in 1967, you could opt  of directional high-beam headlights. This swivels up to 80degrees into where the driver steers. It also self levels too. It is only in the last decade or so we have cars which lights follow where you turn. But not up to 80 degrees like this old girl here. Driving fast would be a breeze, if not for the quite psychotic button brake which, connected to the hydro pneumatic suspension meant that it was like a switch - on or off.

Of course, who cares if the car looked like it came out from an artist's studio or from another planet. Note the rear turn indicators (or signals). These were placed high up so that other drivers behind the DS could see clearly what the driver of the DS is up to.

There are new DS Citroens these days. But none are as mental or as out-worldly as this. In the days where money talks and the survival of companies depends on profit margins, we will never, ever see such a car again. Heck, look at where the human race is at - we don't fly supersonic anywhere anymore, we don't put people on the moon, we don't invent big time cures for anything. All we do is go on social media and complain. Especially Malaysians. Oi, start thinking of more innovation things to build people. I am not a scientist, I am reminding you folks out there who will be or or who are to start innovating again.

As for my personal experience with this, I remember seeing one as a kid in Taiping.In the late 1970s and the early 1980s one was being driven quite regularly (it could be from out of town but I saw it pretty regular back then). It was majestic in a totally different way. Outlandish was the word. Those days the Sultan of Perak (the late Sultan Idris Shah) came by occasionally in his Rolls Royce Phantom so we small town folk got to see a few unique cars way back then too. But this Citroen DS was still pretty cool too. Then in the early 2000s my friend's father bought one which was used at my friend's wedding as the wedding reception car during his reception at a hotel. The car was a pink DS and unfortunately it ended up lost amongst a pile of other Citroens at a supposedly local Citroen specialist, who must actually be a Citroen destroyer as he kept giving excuse after excuse instead of actually fixing up the car. A real waste actually.