Citroën DS

Michael Booth hitches a ride in the grande dame of the French roads

(Francois Durand/Getty Images)

One of the great perks of living just around the corner from the Champs-Elysées - aside from the reassurance of knowing that an unlimited supply of Ladurée pistachio macaroons is close by - are the parades. These range from poignant, doddering veterans to chemically saturated whippets on bikes - both of which I can take or leave. But when I heard that Paris would be marking the 50th anniversary of the most extraordinary car ever made by hosting a massive parade in its honour, I knew I had to be a part of it.

Citroën DS

Would suit:The passionate and the patient
Price: £4,000 to £10,000
Maximum speed: 120mph, 0-60 in 11.8 secs (DS23 EFI Pallas)
Combined fuel consumption: 23mpg

And so, one Sunday morning earlier this month, I walked to Avenue Foch, where I was confronted by a gathering of biblical proportions: 1,600 Citroën DSs of every colour and creed, from museum-piece 1955 originals, to unique coach-built convertibles, to freak-show custom jobs (one German had covered his with fur - kerr-ayzee!). I complimented a Swiss owner on his dazzling, glassy black, top- of-the-range DS 23. What is it about the DS that inspires such devotion? I asked. "It lives, you know, it breathes," he said, pointing at a car being started nearby as it rose majestically on its cushion of air and seemed almost to sigh back on its haunches.

The Citroën DS remains a startling sight. It was unveiled on 6 October 1955 at the Paris Salon and was an instant and, it turned out, enduring sensation. Designed by Flaminio Bertoni, together with former aerospace engineer André Lefebvre, the DS was sleek, spacious and radical in every regard, a car from outer space landed on planet Vauxhall. Its pièce de résistance was a high-pressure hydraulic power unit that operated the steering, brakes and hydropneumatic suspension and which, together with the bounciest armchairs ever fitted to an automobile, gave it a uniquely floaty yet controlled ride - unsurpassed even today (Rolls-Royce later adopted the same system).

Roland Barthes christened the car the Déesse, or goddess, and it went on to play a crucial role in the cultural and even political life of France - a DS saved the life of Charles de Gaulle during the 1962 attempt on his life (thanks to its self-levelling suspension a DS can drive on three wheels if necessary; his managed to keep going despite being riddled with bullets).

Over 150 different versions of the DS were made over the next two decades, but even when the last car rolled off the line in 1975, it was still somehow futuristic, particularly at a time when we were still trying to flog the world Hillman Hunters.

On the day, I bagged my ride in one of the most desirable DSs of them all - a 1966 Chapron drop top, owned by a hospitable Citroën dealer from Dortmund called Jens. It felt grand, ensconced in this seductive motor car, swanning past crowds of bystanders, down to the Seine, past the Palais Royale and across to the Left Bank, before heading for the Eiffel Tower and... chaos.

The unseasonally warm weather, comic incompetence of the Parisian traffic police and the resultant crawling traffic had begun to take its toll and ailing DSs now lined the route, their bonnets raised. We almost made it but eventually our temperature gauge, too, began to lean ominously to the right and we finally cruised to a standstill. I thanked Jens for the ride, thanked the Lord that I didn't have to nurse this ageing grande dame 500 miles back to her garage, and set off for home on foot.

Further information
www.citroencarclub.org.uk

It's a not a classic yet: Citroën C6

In a cunning reversal of our usual routine, here's a car that you can't buy yet but which I guarantee will one day be thought of as a classic: Citroën's much-anticipated C6 luxury saloon.

All big, wacky Citroën saloons eventually make the classic grade. The XM is almost there - give it another 10 years - though, that said, I suspect the C5 will never make it (not weird enough), but the C6's outlandish proportions (check that stupendous front overhang), extravagant complexity, and sheer, show-stopping looks should ensure automotive immortality.

Whether or not it'll sell new is another thing, as Citroën are intending to ask £30-38,000 for it. I wish the C6 well, I really do, and if the company truly only expects to sell a few hundred a year in the UK, then it seems it has learnt from its calamitous over-supply of the XM.