Pallas Athena — the French goddess

There have been many articles in the best automotive magazines in the world, including New Zealand Classic Car (May 1997, issue 77), about the Citroën DS. Its name derived from Déesse (French for ‘goddess’), whose innovative design was styled by Italian sculptor Flaminio Bertoni and launched at the 1955 Paris Motor Show. During the first day of the show, 12,000 pre-orders would be taken for what was the most positively outrageous and inspiring innovation to hit the automotive industry in decades, if ever. It would not be until March 2016 that this record would be beaten, when the Tesla 3 received more pre-orders in one day: a staggering 180,000.

Not only did it not look like the more conventional straight lined designs of the age, it was designed with superior aerodynamics, body panels a mix of aluminium (bonnet), fibreglass (roof), and