DIVINE by DESIGN

‘The radical appearance of the new car had a similar effect to that of the Lockheed Blackbird spy plane’

For me there are two objects designed in the 1950s that stand out as other-worldly: the Lockheed SR71 Blackbird and Citroën’s DS. As part of his design brief for the highly secret supersonic Blackbird spy plane, its designer, Kelly Johnson, intended anyone seeing it would find it to be so unlike anything else flying at that time that they would be unable to describe it. Citroën’s problem was rather different and yet the outcome was similar.

Its Traction Avant range had been in production since 1934 and had changed very little in appearance. The performance and handling of the 11CV was still class-leading but something new was needed. There were several attempts by Pierre Boulanger (Citroën boss), André Lefèbvre (head of French research and design group Bureau d’Études), and master stylist Flaminio Bertoni to update the Traction during the late 1940s, and in 1948 Boulanger authorised the start of the VGD project: ‘voiture á grande diffusion’, a larger, faster car to take advantage of the new Routes Nationales.

His cahier des charges to Lefèbvre was actually considered conservative by the design team. But then, in 1950, Boulanger was killed in a road accident while driving a Traction, and his successor Robert Puiseux appointed Pierre Bercot as Directeur Général and head of the VGD project. Bercot was convinced by Lefèbvre that the project should be redefined, since there was the opportunity ‘to create a car that would be as far ahead of its contemporaries as the Traction had been in 1934’. This included functional aerodynamics for good performance and low fuel consumption, and the use of new materials to reduce maintenance and simplify body repairs. Lefèbvre gave Bertoni two pencil sketches of what the VGD should look like. ‘It should be as sleek as the latest jet aircraft,’ was his instruction.

Flaminio Bertoni had been born in Italy, where he trained as a sculptor. He worked as a