1971 Citroën DS - Jay Leno's Garage

[Music] welcome to the episode of Jalen's garage today we're going to talk about my 1971 Citroen DS this car premiered back and I believe October of 1955 and it remains to this day the most innovative car ever designed the most unusual car ever designed a car with more different features than any other car you know some cars that have one little feature but everything else would be pretty standard this is totally new totally original thinking and just totally French this was designed by Andre labret I think I'm saying his name right I'm not good with these French names and a gentleman Paul Magus ma G yes I think it was he was the first one Paul was the first one to come up with the idea of using fluid under pressure as a spring you know prior to this car everybody uses shock absorbers or springs and the idea of using fluid as a spring well it just didn't happen the genesis of this car was actually pre-war and then they hid it from the Germans during the occupation of France and after the war they worked on it to this day it still looks like a car of the future you know a lot of times you'll see movies from the 80s or 90s to show the future and they show people driving by in one of these because even though it was designed back in 55 it still looks futuristic it's so unusual the front it track is wider than the rear that's for aerodynamics the roof fiberglass for lightweight Keith centum gravity low very clever idea move the taillights up here what people can actually see them because the car is so low the pneumatic suspension we'll get into that in just a minute and this is to this day the most comfortable car ever built I don't believe there's a rolls-royce or mercedes-benz or any other car that rides as comfortably is this it was not built to be a Nurburgring car certainly the only letdown in this car was the was the engine when this car was designed the idea was to use a six-cylinder water-cooled flat-six much like a Porsche 911 well it just got a little too expensive and they went to their tried and true water-cooled four-cylinder a very safe car in the event of an accident this is the first car with the end where the engine and a crash would go under the car if you hit the front end it would literally go down under the car and not come into the passenger compartment and kill people it's just a fascinating automobile I'm going to change a tire later I'm going to show you how you change a tire in this you can do it without using any jacks it's really fascinating this big aluminum hood here this is the single largest aluminum pressing of any automobile up to this point it may still be to this day I don't think so but up to this point it was so there was a lot of innovation with these when they came to America the problem was situation did not have the mechanics and the servicing you know you send this down to your local gas station and clem comes in with this American wrenches and starts working on it and that's pretty much the end of this car it is complicated but it's only complicated if you've worked on traditional cars once you study this and look at it it all makes perfect sense let's open the hood let's show you the engines take a look have to open it from each side okay looks a little scary but it's really not it's pretty straightforward it's a front-wheel drive automobile now if I mentioned that four speeds on the column it also had something called sit traumatic which was their version of an automatic transformation what was quite innovative as well it wasn't a full automatic this particular model has air conditioning even though it's a 71 air condition was not available on these till 72 but I found a wrecked car and I took the unit and the dashboard and put it in this car so that's why it looks the way it does as you can see you've got a shroud here because the air comes out from underneath and comes up here and cools the motor this model has just a little under 2.2 liters it's not a big motor it's not extremely powerful car but because of its aerodynamics it can maintain high speeds for long periods of time it gets pretty good gas mileage considering it's a big car that can hold four or five people I think 112 miles an hour with the end of the world for these but that's really all you need but it's not you know nowadays so many cars have to do so many different things they've got a handle they've got to do this this car was built to be comfortable and that's that's what it does you'll see when we go over bumps in fact I'm going to show you an ad this is an ad for Citroen suspension this is like the weirdest ad it's well it's like a fish in it and it looks like the guy was on acid when he did it but here take a look at the commercial [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I mean I get what they're trying to say in that commercial it's just such an odd sort of thing see this is the whole suspension idea of this car is based on the fact that you can compress a gas but not a liquid so see well here here's a diagram of what one of these spheres looks like okay these spheres you have liquid and gas and the liquid acts as a damper you know for suspension where whereas the gas provides the springing effect because you can compress a gas and that's basically all there is to it you see you've got them here throughout the car there's one there and they run everything including your brakes that's another thing I'll show you in a minute there's no brake pedal on this car you have a button on the floor which you just sort of touch and that kind of slows you down you tell them people drive one of these for the first time because they go like this bouncing down the road and you can adjust the suspension and raise our lowered if you see a giant puddle or snow you can bring it all the way up and then you can roll it all the way down for the highway and then we'll change a tire later I'll show you how you change a tire using just a without using a jack the car lifts itself up and you put a jack stand under it well I'll show you that in a minute another really cool thing of the Citroen headlights I'll show you something they do that I think is very smart you know a lot of cars like Jags and whatnot in the 60s had covered headlights and it would get dirty in here you know or get cloudy well how do you clean that you really can't well what's that you ended can you see they put a little door here then you put your hand in there and clean the inside the window how simple is that very clever very clever and this has because the card can go up and down in suspension the headlights will also adjust depending on the height of the car and the headlights turn with the wheels now this was stupidly illegal here in America because in America you had to have fixed headlights because that was the law but this one's been retrofitted and what it's just done with cables as the wheels turn the headlights can follow you around a corner this is a big selling point that's it you're on in fact here's a European ad showing the turning headlights and listen to the bongo music very cool very 60s yeah check it out [Music] [Applause] [Music] if you do have one of these you want to make sure you is only the citroen I think it's the green lhm fluid and that don't use automatic transmission fuel you can't use oil don't use anything else oh you'll ruin the entire car you have to use the fluid that if they that they recommend but other than that they pit they're they're pretty bulletproof here let's let's close this up look how light that is I mean the whole car doesn't weigh anything but this this is the real selling point of the DSO the goddess's they call this in France but see when you sit one of these for the first time it's like getting in your favorite easy chair look at this thing it just kind of wraps its arms around you ah this is the most comfortable car your biggest problem is falling asleep while you drive up okay I mean it's that comfortable the floor is the floor is padded is this much foam on the floor so you could when it's just fantastic there's no brake pedal there's a little bulb on the floor looks like a windshield washer button and you just touch it you just apply the slightest amount of pressure to the floor and the car stops it's really almost the exact opposite of a lot of American style cars we just need to kind of man hand a little bit there's not a lot of Road feel it's just every just sort of after while you begin to sense what the car is doing you don't even feel speed bumps when you grow up in this car because of the suspension and because this was very unusual having just the one stock here instead of having three or four you can see the - bored clearly you know a lot of times in a car you're driving and you have to turn the wheel to see where you are where is this one you always have a perfect view of the gauges come on I'll show you the back seat and the trunk the back seat just as comfortable as the front seat this one has the shades this is a popular item option rather in in France to have these window shades here keeps the Sun off the leather on the back there but they kind of ral it a little bit when you go down the road I've got a nice full-size trunk all kinds of room and this this is all you need to change a tire let me show you how this works first thing you want to do is raise the suspension now see this car is cold had it been riving it now would have gone up in a second but since it's at overnight it took a little extra time okay set the parking brake dent dead in the next event didn't Gannon didn't get into the dance since then I'm still in school can we set it there we set it down give it a minute and voila both wheels are off the ground I know what you're thinking but what if you have a flat tire in the back put that fender how do you get it off oh no problem this year how clever is this all you do is one bolt voila you change the tire oh very clever Monsieur not bad look at that could it be simpler I'll put this fender back on we'll take this thing for riding to tell you how this car saved the life of the president of France it's a fascinating story in fact they even made a movie about it was called day of the jackal let me put this on we'll go for a spin is it the greatest car the 20th century I think you can make a strong case for it it just has so many innovative features in one vehicle which which never happens you know most manufacturers get a little scared they try one new thing but okay let's keep everything else by the book where is this everything was innovative about you know it's funny so many cars now are about high performance and all these other things there aren't many cars are just about comfort and oh my god this is so comfortable you know when I tell people is the most comfortable car in the world like oh yeah okay yeah sure right right and then they simply they go huh oh my god you ever get a chance to sit in one of these you got to do it like riding on a cloud it just floats along it's not bode like you know some of those mid-60s American cars it's a combination of soft and firm at the same time it's hard to explain unless you actually experience it you've got rack and pinion steering hydraulically assisted or hydropneumatic Lee assisted I guess you call it I love the thin a pillar here and the big wide panoramic windscreen not as much I liked the Corvette's and the muscle cars sometimes it's fun just to have a nice quiet ride to glide along there's so many books out about the citro and you know they're there not only in automotive publications but in art books because it's really it's really seen as a piece of French culture this is probably one's beloved car and France this and the maybe the 2cv you notice the wheels bouncing up and down but the body doesn't move they built about I think a million six hundred thousand and some of these cars which is pretty amazing considering the time was not an inexpensive car during its lifespan they sold over 1.6 million of them that's pretty amazing these were exported all over the world they were built in England as well now this particular car here is a four-speed they didn't make a five-speed model and they haven't find one of those transmissions I'll put it in here because it really high speeds 90 95 the engines a little buzzy so it'd be nice to have that fifth gear just to bring the Reds down you'll notice some of the early Citroen were single headlight models and a gentleman named Robert Oberon I hope I'm saying his name right he's the guy that designed the Citroen SM which is another masterpiece uses the same basic technology except using a v6 Maserati engine he did the restyle on this car he did the dual headlights and the headlights to turn that was all his idea as well the French really engineer and think differently than the rest of us and thank God for them Germany was the birthplace of the car but France was the nursery and all the great engineering ideas came out of the French you know system depended and all that kind of stuff it's really fascinating but as you can see although this is not a fast car you can travel this road at reasonably high speeds because it handles so nicely now this is a very bumpy road normally and I don't I don't feel the bumps at all in this thing andre citroen he was quite a guy he wanted to be the Henry Ford of France and in some ways he was but a lot of ways he wasn't he was a he was a womanizer and a gambler and he avenged a lost the company but he was very progressive I believe he had health care and women workers when that was not usually loud in a lot of European countries so he was there's quite progressive that way the logo for sich one is interesting those two Chevron's I'm told Andre Citroen got that idea from some helical cut gears that mesh together and that's that that's sort of what the two Chevron's mean one cool thing about this car let's say you get a flat tire you don't have a spare you can drive it away on three wheels because you can lift up one wheel and just go along it's not the safest way to drive it'll get you off the road French cars are all about driving with effort is possible and you don't have to put a lot of effort into driving French cards for most bets panade Citroen pujo for some reason the French may because their roads are so good I don't know why it is but they just have the most comfortable riding cars of anybody this car saved the life of the president of France there's a group in France called the OAS and they had planned a couple of assassination attempts against president de Gaulle they were mad because they felt president of Gaulle had betrayed France by giving Algeria back to Algerians on October 22nd 1962 12 gunmen opened fire on the president's Citroen the president his wife were coming back from Orly Airport they're travelling 70 miles an hour the car was hit with a hundred and forty bullets rear window shattered all four tire loan-out two motorcycle security guards killed and yet the chauffeur was able to drive the car at high speed were four blown out tires thanks to this very sophisticated suspension system and from that point on president de Gaulle named this car the official car of France he vowed he would never ride in any other car again and as far as I know he was true to his word that's why this car is become a national treasure in as you can see and handles these windy roads very nicely certainly better than any well almost 60 year old car has the right to do but just because the car is comfortable doesn't mean it doesn't handle it does handle it just handles differently some people call this the most beautiful car ever made I don't know if I would call it beautiful if you own one I think you think it's beautiful because you get so taken in by you get so seduced by the car it's unusual looking then it becomes more beautiful you know they gave me a perspective what the car is like behind the wheel you've got a panoramic windscreen of course thin a pillars nothing blocks your vision your Mehra's mounted down low which is kind of unusual but that's French I love you have three pods here this one you can test her your your gauges here this will flash if your fluid level is low oil pressure alternative anything fails that will flash this is your gas gauge right here speedometer and inside this one hour there's a little wheel that it tells you your stopping distance at whatever speed you're going out how many feet you need to stop I don't know why you'd be looking at that when you slam on the brakes but it's there anyway anyway you can reset your trip ometer and your odometer is right there this is your tachometer this is your water temperature radio of course French radio this car has air conditioning I found a wreck 72 car that had air conditioning and I pulled the dash out of it I put it on here so it would integrate nicely they did not have air-conditioning at 71 when this car came out but I adapted it to this car and it works great the heating controls are very confusing but things slide and turn the heat on or off as you would any other car that but as you can see almost no effort is required to steer this car just and it actually goes pretty good I mean we're going at a pretty good clip for a road like this and of course your 4-speed on the column right here right now I'm in third gear drop down to fourth gear there you go like that they even rallied these cars they did quite well you bet now how fast we're going we lost the camera crew they're back there somewhere you got your clock right here and of course being French you gotta have a cigarette lighter oh my god you gotta have that with any criticism of this car engine gets a little bit buzzy on the freeway at 70 we're turning a shade over 3,000 rpm it's not bad but I think the five-speed would be an improvement but it's still very smooth notice how it just does this over the bump it's it's amazing I'm surprised more manufacturers didn't license this Citroen suspension system no it's a shame more Americans never got a chance to experience the Citroen you know situation were wonderful engineers they built wonderful cars they just didn't know how to run the deal in network at least in the United States you know most of the really good Citroen mechanics are independent guys but even back in the day I worked at a dealership where we carried Citroen as a kid and you know they just parts were always late they never came there was a strike whatever it was and the consequently customers got extremely frustrated that combined with the fact that a lot of customers would take it to their local gas station and have that mechanic try and do the work on it that's what sort of doomed them they got a reputation for being undependable but you know my situation got 120,000 miles on it I have not any problems this one is God what is it guy seventy-eight 80,000 on it nothing really too bad so it's like anything else you maintain it properly use Citroen fluid and will run forever the only thing this car can't do sadly is a burnout well I don't enjoy this little trip down these shawls Dilys a so to speak this is just a wonderful piece of French artwork it's just such a fantastic amazing car I hope you all get a chance to experience one of these cars some time at least ride in one or driving one but this is why they say vive la France it's just just a terrific automobile we'll see you guys next week bye bye [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 3,447,334

Rating: 4.9159503 out of 5

Keywords: Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, 1971 Citröen DS

Id: kzW_ERSgFRY

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 11 2015