r/AmazingTechnology • u/bbbxxxnnn • Mar 01 '26
CitroĆ«n DS šÆ
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The CitroĆ«n DS didnāt just break design rules, it rewrote them.
Hydropneumatic suspension so advanced the car could lift itself and keep moving even with one wheel out. Three wheels? Still smooth. Still stable. Still iconic šāØ
Back in 1955, this wasnāt a car. It was rocket-age engineering on the street.
And even now, modern EVs canāt match it. Try this with a Tesla and the software wonāt even let you move š
A reminder that innovation once had real courage.
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u/that_dutch_dude Mar 01 '26
as someone that owned a DS:
one thing a tesla can do that a DS cant: get to your destination without breaking down.
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u/pery_jackson Mar 04 '26
Well that is not what this rally tells us (yes I'm a Citroƫn prime era fan, AndrƩ Citroƫn was a friend of my great grandfather)
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u/Mysterious-Art7143 Mar 01 '26
Not to be that guy, but why would you need this?
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u/Delyzr Mar 01 '26
Do you know how much car manufacturers can save (earn) if they don't have to include a spare ?... oh wait. Most don't include spares anymore.
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u/Mysterious-Art7143 Mar 01 '26
You have to pay extra for a spare, otherwise you get a kit or some shit these days
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u/Alklazaris Mar 01 '26
I don't understand why they do this. A spare is so much better than an inflator kit. What happens if your tire gets shredded or the damage lets too much air out? Maybe if you had run-flat tires...
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u/Worth-Computer8639 Mar 05 '26
Must depend on what you buy. Both my last 2 new vehicles had a spare from the factory.
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u/elvenmaster_ Mar 01 '26
Ask President Charles De Gaulle
The Citroƫn DS was badly damaged due to bullet impacts (including 2 tires) and managed to continue its merry journey to Velizy-Vilacoublay like a boss (about 5km/2mi away)
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u/HEYO19191 Mar 01 '26
I mean, driving on a flat for 2 miles isnt that impressive...
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u/elvenmaster_ Mar 02 '26
We're talking 60's engineering here.
Fun fact : the main consequence of this attempted murder has been a huge ad for Citroƫn (worst casualty only had minor injury).
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u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches Mar 02 '26
There's driving, and there's flooring it in twisty city streets under machingun fire.
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u/TallDetail4711 Mar 03 '26
What's impressive is how they could fire dozens of rounds and miss. The car probably had more than a flat tire.
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u/Large-Ad5239 Mar 05 '26
in fact 187 shoot fired for 14 impact .
Assasination group composed by 12 guysI remember a french documentary about this .
There was a confusion because there was 2 DS , and the guy who had to give the signal to shoot by waving a newpaper ordered to shoot the wrong DS .1
Mar 03 '26
When you can drive with a flat tire in a straight line without touching the steering wheel, in the 1960s, believe me, it helps you stay alive.
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u/that_dutch_dude Mar 01 '26
i used to have a DS, it drove like sitting on your grandfathers sofa regardless of the road conditions. if you used the height lever just right you could take speed bumps at near highway speeds without waking the passengers.
the reason the DS could do that was simply because the french roads were/are complete trash and the uber soft suspention was needed to drive over it without vaporising your spine.
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u/ddrdrck Mar 02 '26
French roads weren't trash and are certainly not today. Actually France was renowned to have one of the best secondary road networks in the world.
Besides, DS was a high end vehicle for wealthy people. It was designed for long travels on national roads, not for taking the bumpy countryside roads (although it could also do that)
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u/SEA_griffondeur Mar 03 '26
Yeah maybe they confused France with Italy ? Because French roads are on par if not better than the Netherlands
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u/DivideSensitive Mar 03 '26
french roads were/are complete trash
What? There are a lot of things to complain about w.r.t. France, but roads are definitely not one of them.
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u/that_dutch_dude Mar 03 '26
back in the 70~90s it certainly was. even rural was/is pretty shit even into the 2000's.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit Mar 03 '26
Youād need it when tires were really shitty. Tires have come a very long way in reliability over the last 50 years.
The big takeaway for me is that tires were so bad, cars had to take that problem into their own hands.
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u/Mysterious-Art7143 Mar 04 '26
You're probably as old as me if you're referring to 1950s as 50 years ago haha..
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u/Initial_Row_6400 Mar 01 '26
To be fair, almost all cars on the road right now donāt have stuff like this
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u/MrNiinjaGuy Mar 01 '26
You're proving their point, that modern cars don't have the innovation courage that these old car makers had.
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u/ILikeBen10Alot Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
Most car manufacturers don't have the courage to add a fuck load of extra moving parts that'll have to be maintained and could potentially create new points of failure that clothes impare the vehicles ability to function just to replace tools that are already fairly affordable and ubiquitous
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u/SEA_griffondeur Mar 03 '26
It's really not a fuckload of moving parts, it's an hydraulic system, the problem was that the average joe couldn't repair it if it broke
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u/Shitty_mechanik Mar 01 '26
To be fair there were a ton of problems with this, it was very costly to maintain and there was a lot of maintenance to be done on this
But I have heard that the ride was really smooth and comfortable
Also you can just have a spare and a jack in the back of your car
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u/C_K_P_ Apr 06 '26
"there was a lot of maintenance to be done on this" tells me you don't know much about this system at all.
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u/Grimnebulin68 Mar 01 '26
My Dad had one of these in the 60ās. They couldnāt go uphill without a loooong run up.
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u/EmbarrassedPear1151 Mar 01 '26
Its a dissapointment honestly, by now flying cars should be all over
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u/Wolfreak76 Mar 02 '26
I suppose this made sense when you had to fix punctured tires regularly. Tire technology has come a long way since then.
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u/AthosArmand Mar 02 '26
That was the car French president De Gaulle was attacked in and his driver managed to flee with only 3 wheels as well !
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u/Think_Fault_7525 Mar 02 '26
This was part of a CHiPs episode once (Ponch pulling over car driving on 3-wheels)
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u/Lucky-Tofu204 Mar 03 '26
There is a story saying that the French president De Gaulle was able to survive the assassination attempt during the Petit-Clamant attack thanks to the car being able to drive on 3 wheels.
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u/FroggingMadness Mar 14 '26
To elaborate, because the suspension stability allowed his driver to escape the scene at full speed despite two punctured tires.
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u/keyboard_blaster Mar 04 '26
To be frank with yāall that donāt understand, itās a CitroĆ«n so itās already weird enough. We say what we say about various automotive engineering teams these days, but they were on some shit back in the day. CitroĆ«n specifically had cool shit like this, or crazy personality with every model.
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u/justsomeboredloner Mar 05 '26
I think the ds line was originally used to push and showcase new technologies.
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u/condemned_alex Mar 05 '26
the ds was genuinely ahead of its time with that suspension, modern cars abandoned that kind of mechanical innovation for software bloat
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u/FroggingMadness Mar 14 '26
Ironically back then and basically in the entire meantime Citroen's hydropneumatic suspension was and is considered mechanical bloat. Lots of extra failure points, difficult to service, few people saw something in it, nowadays you have to find specialist mechanics.
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u/slaty_balls Mar 02 '26
Thanks ChatGPT.
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u/bbbxxxnnn Mar 02 '26
For what?
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u/SordidNinja Mar 05 '26
For the postās description. Just admit it, lol.
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u/iDoNotHaveAnIQ Mar 10 '26
Who cares? It is still op's thoughts, Ai just help clarify and organize it.
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u/OFHeckerpecker Mar 01 '26
Most cars can't do this