Citroën DS
James heads for the Alps to see if his DS sings in tune
What do you do when you’ve finished a restoration? Shove the car in a garage and wait for the sun to come out? Well that’s just not for me, chums. And it’s clearly not for the previous owner either – my pal Brian was absolutely resolute: ‘If you don’t use that car, I’ll have the bloody thing back!’ So, I figured from that, I’d better get driving.
The first hurdle had yet to be overcome: confidence. Could I be sure that the big Citroën would be reliable? Would it cut out at junctions? Was there a chance that I might be stranded on a desolate moor, in a puddle of green mineral fluid? It doesn’t matter how thorough or extensive a restoration is, the proof is in that proverbial pudding. Those first tentative miles on the road can reveal all sorts of mechanical mischief but, having used my Citroën for a month of commuting to work and a gentle drive to Holland with friends, I had gained at least some faith in it.
I also felt safe in the knowledge this was a fundamentally good car to start with. Brian had stripped the engine down to the block and totally rebuilt it with new parts in the early Eighties. The car hadn’t moved a mile since then, and so the engine felt like it was virtually new. The hydraulics had been given the thumbs up from Citroën specialists and, having replaced everything from starter motor to alternator and entire cooling system (and requested annual leave from The Boss), I set off for Dover. I settled into a comfy chair aboard the MS Côte des Flandres and hastily connected to the DFDS wifi service, contacting a number of friends around Europe to see if any of them fancied a visit. The first reply came from pals in Geneva – seven hours and 450 miles away. We took our time, spending two sunny days gliding along tree-lined avenues in rolling green French countryside, threading the car through perfect flowery villages and pulling up outside numerous patisseries. This was meant to be a holiday, after all.
I was a living, breathing cliché: An Englishman in a straw hat, driving a Citroën DS in France.
Any mild embarrassment I might have felt was regularly allayed with the friendly waves and nods
from the locals. There was a conversation at every stop – and frequent bewilderment as to why my steering wheel was ‘sur la droite’. There were also routine tasks to be performed at each rest interval, such as a simple dipstick inspection. Whenever I pulled over for a few minutes or more, I rolled the car forwards and checked underneath for puddles. No fluid loss whatsoever. Confidence levels grew ever higher. Even during torrential rain near Besançon, the car didn’t twitch once as it cut through sheets of water.
Warp speed
By the time I applied the handbrake on the shores of Lake Geneva, I felt absolutely convinced of the cars ability to be faithful. A few days later, as I arrived at the home of my friends Paul and Conny in Austria, having conquered numerous alpine passes and a blizzard, I was completely sold. Citroën got it so right. Thus far in several months of DS Sagas, I have exercised restraint on the superlatives but I have to tell you: A well-sorted DS feels as competent as a car of the Nineties with a ride superior to anything available in 2017. This is, don’t forget, a car first unveiled just a decade after D Day. The DS was the result of free-thinking engineers at a company unchained by convention (and to a degree costs) that wanted to improve safety and comfort for the benefit of us all.
On the return leg, we slunk into Germany, hit the autobahn and as suggested by a fellow DS owner, I upped the cruising speed from 65mph to 85mph. It was a revelation. The engine was notably louder but with my right foot planted, the car became an unwavering high speed missile.
We thundered west past Munich and Stuttgart, on occasion hitting one-hundred, astonishing stability aided by a combination of aerodynamics, intelligent fluid suspension, front wheel drive, inboard discs and centrepoint steering (whereby the universal joint is mounted within the wheel bearing and kingpin axis is centred entirely on the tyre’s contact patch). Take a bumpy motorway sliproad in a hydropneumatic Citroën and you’ll realise just
how composed it is, as you leave most modern cars skipping about unceremoniously like a beetle on a hot plate.
I arrived late to the annual DS Rally near Milton Keynes and next morning, crawled out from my tent. I sat for a few minutes beside my fly-spattered car, watching other owners and their freshly polished paintwork. I wondered if they could possibly imagine how, just 24 hours earlier, I was thundering along the autobahn. That I was at the end of a 2600-mile adventure up mountain passes, through snow and watery alpine torrents.
Overrun with smugness, I asked the owner of the car next to mine if he had ever taken his DS anywhere of interest, imagining his answer to involve little more than a local village fete. ‘I drove it to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco a few years ago,’ he replied. ‘We did 200 miles of dirt track but the car didn’t miss a beat.’ That’ll teach me. Proof if ever there was, that there’s no point in owning a classic car if you don’t get out and drive it.
‘Incredibly, the DS was first unveiled a mere decade after WWII ended…’