Citroën will make its Pebble Beach debut in August
It will be a year of several firsts and fresh faces on the 18th fairway at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance this year. Event chairman Sandra Button announced that Citroën, alongside fellow newcomer Tucker, will make its debut as a featured class in the historic concours.
“Interest in Citroën among collectors has seen exponential growth in recent years,” Button said in a press release. “The Concours is pleased to showcase custom coachwork Citroëns that offer the best of French technology and design.”
The Citroën DS debuted at the 1955 Paris Auto Show, and the car’s iconic spaceship design was such a hit that Citroën received 80,000 orders by the end of the week. The DS featured hydraulic systems for the brakes, steering, and transmission, as well as a revolutionary hydro-pneumatic suspension in which each wheel could individually adapt to road conditions to create a smoother ride.
Through the years, Citroën’s unique styling made it an attractive canvas for coachbuilders, and Citroën collector Jeffrey Fisher compares the post-war French automobiles to couturier dresses. “They featured some of the highest number of interior and exterior permutations for a car ever.”
Three Citroëns from Fisher’s collection are featured on the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance commemorative poster, mostly notably a two-tone blue 1966 Citroën DS 21 Chapron Le Léman Coupé. The car was originally displayed at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show.
There will be a lot more Citroëns and Tuckers at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Other featured classes are Motor Cars of the Raj, which will shine the spotlight on cars with ties to India; Rollston Coachwork; OSCA, founded by three Maserati brothers in 1947; and Vintage Sporting Cars, which focuses on automobiles built from 1916–24.
