French Goddess celebrates 50 Years

The Citroën DS, known affectionately as the Goddess, celebrates her fiftieth birthday on 1 October 2005, marking the day when Citroën unveiled a car at the Grand Palais Exhibition Centre in Paris that, quite simply, revolutionised the automobile industry and was hailed as a sensation by the world's media. Pronounced the French way, DS is a homophone for "déesse" (goddess), a semantic interpretation that is marvelously apt for this extraordinary car. The influence of the DS continues through every product Citroën produces today, be it the Hydractive 3+ suspension in the new Citroën C5, the direct descendent of the original hydropneumatic suspension in the DS, to the spirit of design and technical innovation that is in every Citroën model.
The marvel of automotive design that is the Citroën DS was created by two men and their staff teams. Both were originally recruited by André Citroën and they designed the Traction Avant, a car equally as revolutionary when it was launched in 1934. André Lefèvre was an engineer, while Flaminio Bertoni was a draftsman and sculptor. The two men pooled their talent to create this automotive wonder. With the DS, they were set to revolutionize automotive history. Technology and styling functioned together in perfect harmony.