Citroën DS in popular culture
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The French Citroën DS motor car has appeared in a wide array of real-life and fictional media, and is widely known in the automotive world. The following are a range of examples of this impact on popular culture.
[edit] Space age design
To a France still deep in reconstruction after the devastation of World War II, and also building its identity in the post-colonial world, the Citroën DS motor car was a symbol of French ingenuity. It defied virtually every automotive design convention of that era.
It also posited the nation's relevance in the Space Age, during the global race for technology of the Cold War. Structuralist philosopher Roland Barthes, in an essay about the car, said that it looked as if it had "fallen from the sky". [1]
On the 1987 film Back to the Future II, the DS used as a futuristic taxi from the year 2015.
[edit] Machine gun ambush of Charles de Gaulle
The DS was adopted as the official car for the French government for a number of uses – as police cars, as ambulances (in the station-wagon form), and as limousines for France's highest officials.
President Charles de Gaulle was a big fan of the DS and used one for all official functions. He survived an assassination attempt on 22 August 1962 – a machine gun ambush by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) &ndash in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart, because the DS he was aboard was able to drive quickly on a bad road while one rear tyre was out, thanks to its hydropneumatic suspension.
This event was recreated in the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal.
[edit] Motorsport
The DS won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1959 and 1966.
[edit] Crime
The actual (in)famous "French Connection" car was a 1961 DS convertible with the fuel tank modified with a partition, a small chamber to hold enough gasoline to operate the car, and the rest containing heroin. US Customs agents noticed that the same car was being shipped back and forth across the ocean.
[edit] Film and television
[edit] List of major appearances
The Citroën DS is seen in many films and television shows, notably:
- The Day of the Jackal from 1973 features the reenactment of a famous moment in French history, the failed 1962 assassination attempt on Charles De Gaulle in his DS, by OAS terrorists upset about de Gaulle's Algeria policies. In the actual incident, the shots had blown two of the tires, but the car could still escape at high speed; this is a normal handling characteristic of the DS model.
- The motorcycle patrolman in the 1977 American TV series "CHiPs" stop a DS driving on three wheels on the highway. The motorist, speaking in broken English and using pantomime, explains that the car had a flat; since it is capable of being safely driven with just three wheels, he therefore removed the failed tire and stowed it in the trunk so he could drive to a garage for repair.
- The DS plays a major role in the 1983 film Scarface, where the character played by Al Pacino refuses to ignite a car bomb attached to a DS traversing New York City en route to the United Nations (although the refusal is for humane reasons — Scarface did not want to kill the target's children riding with the target).
- Cold Fever (1995) is about a young Japanese man from Tokyo who travels to Iceland and ends up taking a road trip across the island in a DS.
- The Goddess of 1967 (2000), directed by Clara Law, is about a young Japanese man from Tokyo who travels to Australia to buy a 1967 DS and ends up taking a road trip across the Outback in the car.
- Fantômas — A 1964 film about a fictional French master criminal. The arch criminal's Citroën DS had retractable wings and could be converted into an aiplane enabling Fantômas, (played by the late Jean Marais), to escape from the continuous but unsuccessful pursuit of the hapless police inspector played by Louis de Funès.
- Le Samourai — Alain Delon's hitman character carried a large ring of keys that enabled him to steal any DS he encountered.
- Novocaine (2001) – Steve Martin's character, Dr. Frank Sangster, DDS, drives a Euro-spec DS in what appears to be the current day suburbs of Chicago.
- Sam Shepard and Julie Delpy take a langourous, beautifully photographed drive from Paris to Rome in a 1960 DS, in Volker Schlöndorff's 1991 film The Voyager (Homo Faber).
- Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985) involves a Francophile and ends in a drive-in movie with a DS convertible.
- Wonder Boys — in the 1995 book by Michael Chabon, Sara Gaskell (the pregnant, adulterous college chancellor) drives a rare cherry-red convertible DS; in Curtis Hanson and Steve Kloves’s 2000 film adaptation the character played by Frances McDormand drives a more prosaic white 4 door sedan; the car develops directional headlights in the last scene with Michael Douglas.
- Peter Graves drives a silver 1966 DS21H Pallas in an off-road car chase in "Morocco"*nbsp;— American TV series Mission:Impossible
- Dustin Hoffman's character drives one in I ♥ Huckabees.
- In the 2006 Steven Spielberg film Munich, the DS owned by the informant Louis is prominently featured.
- In Back to the Future II, the DS is used as a taxi from the distant future. It is also seen crashed on the side of the street down which Marty wanders in 1985.
- In the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, Buffy's mentor Giles owns a Citroën DS. Buffy, unimpressed, says "One of these days, you're going to have to get a grown-up car". In one episode, it is crashed (presumably totalled) as they are trying to escape from evil beings.
- In the Dutch movie Zoeken naar Eileen, a DS is crashed in a tunnel.
- Invisible Waves — in Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's 2006 film, a black DS is featured prominently in the scenes shot in Phuket, Thailand.
- In Life Aquatic, as Team Zissou lands on the island to storm the Hotel Citroën, a dishevelled 1956 DS can be seen in the distance on the beach.
- Christopher Lee's villain is chauffeur-driven in a black DS in 1978's Return from Witch Mountain.
- The DS can also be seen in Crooklyn, Simone, Sliding Doors, The Green Berets, Ali, Team America: World Police, Bandits, Real Genius, Catch Me if You Can, The Odessa File, CQ, French Kiss, The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, The Protectors, Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, Jack the Bear, Back to the Future Part II, and the Lord of War.
- In The Da Vinci Code' a photorealistic CGI DS is hit by a truck, killing the parents of Sophie Neveu and leaving the survivor of the crash an orphan to be raised by her grandfather.
- Duncan MacLeod from the television series Highlander: The Series drives a DS whenever he is in France.
- In Mel Brooks' original 1968 cinema version of The Producers, a black DS delivers socialites to the premiére of Springtime for Hitler.
- A DS or ID is used to transport Vietnamese Army officials to a field camp in a flashback scene in Spy Game.
- The former prime minister of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) Ian Smith can be seen in some old photographs leaning on the wing of an Estate version of the car shortly after the 1964 election.
- A drawing of a Citroën DS converted to a hover car can be seen in the opening credits of the TV series Eureka, about a town in the Northern United States populated by various scientific boffins.
- A rarely seen DS convertible is driven by the character Irene Cassini in Gattaca.
- For Citroëns in movies also see IMCDb
- In several episodes of the TV series Crossing Jordan, fictitious character Dr. Garret Macy is seen at the wheel of his DS.
- One episode of the TV animé Gate Keepers has the Commander character driving a DS pursued by a cyborg in a racing-modified C10 Nissan Skyline.
- A DS Safari plays a central role in the 2006 film Driving Lessons.
- A DS serves as personal transport for Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland. In a key scene, the DS hits a cow, and Amin thus meets the doctor from Scotland.
- The Griswald family drives a DS from France to Germany in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985),ultimately crushing it in an alley running from a German mob.
- Kelly Osbourne rides in a DS in her 2005 music video One Word.
[edit] Art
Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco was one of the many artists inspired by the DS: he created a "thin DS" sculpture by slicing the car into three sections lengthwise. Then, after removing the central piece, he reattached the side panels creating an arrow-like car. [2] The doors and boot opened, though it was now a sculpture; no longer a usable car.
The Belgian cartoonist Franquin used several models of Citroën in his comics. The DS is seen in the album "Z comme Zorglub" printed in 1959.
[edit] Nicknames
In addition to its French nickname, Déesse, which is a pun, sounding out the car's initials to form the word for "Goddess", the DS has also been given nicknames in several other countries.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia it was called Ajkula (for "shark"), due to its shape. In Spain it's nickname of Tiburón also means "shark". Even in Italy it was called Squalo, that means "shark" too.
In Portugal it is called Boca de Sapo which means literally "frog's mouth", and in Poland and Slovenia it's nickname is Żaba and Žaba, respectively, both meaning "frog".
In the Netherlands, the DS/ID is often called "Snoek", which means "pike" (the fish).
"Sharknose" is perhaps the most common nickname in English, but refers only to post-1967 models. The Dutch know the DS as the snoek (in English, pike — a long thin fish), while the Portuguese have nicknamed it "Boca de Sapo" or frog's mouth, a reference to the headlights as eyes and the bonnet as the mouth in early models. To the Swedes, it is "Paddan", i.e. "the toad" — not to be confused with the Saab Paddan. The stylist of the DS, Flaminio Bertoni (not to be confused with the Italian automotive stylist Bertone), said that he took as his inspiration a large fish. The car is often called "Tiburón" (Shark) in spanish.
