My Citroën DS

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Why a DS?

Beautiful, innovative, exceptionally comfortable and with excellent road holding, the Citroën DS is in my humble opinion the greatest car ever conceived. While early first front Dees are without doubt the prettiest and most adventurous in their design, they are getting difficult to find and are not for the mechanically faint hearted. Later second front cars had less adventurous interiors but gained larger engines and more luxurious versions. The third and last front cars like the one pictured present a different, more aggressive visage to the world while late cars hid an almost boring dash within. These cars were the most powerful and luxurious Dees and are still in plentiful supply, and therefore affordable by the likes of me.

The Car

My car is a 1972 DS20 Préfecture (BVH)
1972 - This year of manufacture featured the 3rd nose, and the last (5th?) dash. The original '55 DS had two round lights, while the 62-67 DS had auxiliary lights mounted proud of the bodywork and a different bumper treatment. From 68 to it's death in 1975, the DS featured this front with faired-in lights, lending it a shark-like appearance.
DS (pronounced day-ess-e; French for Goddess) is the "standard" version of Citroën's revolutionary car. There was also a lesser specified "ID" or "DSpécial/DSuper" that did without power steering and brakes.
20 means the 2 litre (1985cc) carburetted engine is fitted. This develops 98bhp at 5500rpm, giving a top speed of 105mph (167km/h)
Préfecture Apparently, this type of DS was destined for official use by regional (préfectures in France) officials - e.g. police, mayors and other extensions of any good socialist government. Préfectures typically had the B and C pillars as black painted panels, rather than aluminium Pallas trims seen on my car

BVH This means it has the Hydraulic semi-automatic gearbox (boite vitesse hydraulique - BVH). This is a 4 speed manual gear change, with the traditional clutch pedal being replaced by hydraulically controlled clutch and gear change. In common with all Citroëns of the era, the car is quite long legged in it's gearing, with 70mph equivalent to 3000rpm.

Ownership History

Originally, the car was owned by M. Emile Gourreaud of Paris, who bought the car from the dealer Louis Baumann of 29 Rue Delambre, Paris. M. Gourreaud was most likely an employee of the French Government at the time, as the car is a "Préfecture"
It then changed hands to an unknown private owner(s). I am attempting to trace it's history here.
Thierry Percevault of Vernantes, Maine et Loire owned the car before selling it to Philippe Losson, a French DS Specialist, who rebuilt the engine and did some basic suspension maintenance.
The car was bought from M. Losson by Ward Hagenaar in the Netherlands who held onto it briefly.

I bought it in December 2002 from Ward with the help of André Pol of Citroën André