The DS: A Goddess Among Cars

If the 2CV represented functional minimalism, the Citroën DS embodied futuristic maximalism. Launched in 1955, it looked like it had driven out of a science fiction film. But the real innovations were invisible: hydropneumatic suspension that let the car rise and fall, power steering with self-centering action, semi-automatic transmission, and disc brakes. The DS introduced technologies that wouldn't become mainstream for decades.

The DS development team included several women engineers, notably Suzanne Duchène, who worked on the revolutionary suspension system. "Men designed for speed and power," she later recalled. "I kept asking about comfort for passengers, especially in the rear seats. Why should children and elderly parents suffer because engineers wanted to feel sporty?"

The car's impact transcended transportation. Roland Barthes wrote that the DS "had fallen from the sky." It became a symbol of French modernism, as important culturally as the New Wave cinema or Le Corbusier's architecture. When terrorists attacked President Charles de Gaulle's DS in 1962, the car's advanced suspension allowed his driver to escape on shot-out tires—the goddess protecting the general.