Citroen DS21: Custom Car Gallic Style

Cars People

Just looking at this Gallic design classic makes you want rush to Lyon, order a strong Café Noir and light up lung bustin’ Gauloise or two.

These shots are of an extremely rare 1966 DS21 ‘Decopotable’, the coachwork for which was rendered by Henri Chapron.

Chapron set up his Atelier in a Paris suburb in 1919 and in the1950s he was drawn to the new Citroen DS which was a state of the art piece of tech back then with its revolutionary aerodynamics and innovative hydraulic suspension.

Chapron bought standard DS models one at a time and customised them for resale as the now much sought after ‘Decopotable’ (simply French for convertible) models. In total he hand built 389 of them.

2015 marks the 60th birthday of the DS line and to celebrate Citroen will have a strong presence at next years London Classic Car Show (8-11 Jan) to celebrate.

If you drop by in January you can view Monsieur Chapron’s handiwork in person. Strong black coffee will be available but the organisers say smoking is not permitted…

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