Saturday, March 24, 2018

Citroën DS 19 and a scene from "Cold Fever," 1995




My narrative on the Citroen DS 19, written for Andy Beckman at the Studebaker National Museum and a exhibit placard:

The Citroen DS 19 was one of the most innovative production
vehicles of the 20th century. Its origin can be traced to back to the
1930s, and the work of sculptor and designer Flaminio Bertoni, aviation
engineer Andre Lefebure, and suspension engineer Pail Mages. Introduced at the
1955 Paris Auto Show, it immediately became a symbol of French technological
and design ingenuity, at a time of post-WWII economic recovery, reconstruction,
and decolonization. In 1957 French philosopher Roland Barthes remarked that the
DS-19 had “obviously fallen from the sky.” Approximately 1.5 million units were
produced between 1955 and 1975.

With the exception of the 1991 c.c. engine carried over from
the Traction Avant, almost everything visible and invisible on this car was utterly
new and radically different.  To begin
with, it looked like a “glass escargot.” A front/mid-engine layout moved front
wheels that were wider than the rear.
The front of the car had no grill, but a shallow nose slot; its bobtail
rear was marked by turn signals fixed to the roof, which in turn were flanked
by removable fenders graced by spats.
Its fiberglass green roof rendered the car into a glass house equipped
with an incredibly lush interior that featured comfortable front seats. For
safety, the DS 19 had a one-spoke steering wheel wrapped in plastic cord.

What made the DS 19 different than any other car on the
road, however, was a self-leveling independent suspension made possible by an
engine-driven pump and two bulbous accumulators. This complex system employed
both a liquid and nitrogen gas at 2,400 pounds per square inch to raise and
lower the car as well as assist a semi-automatic transmission and inboard disc
brakes. The result was a car that glided over the countryside. In sum, the DS
19 is as distinctively French as a French car can be.

"Cold Fever" is a very funny Icelandic-Japanese Road Movie!  From Wiki:

Hirata (Masatoshi Nagase) is a successful Japanese businessman whose plan for a two-week winter holiday in Hawaii to play golf changes when his elderly grandfather (Seijun Suzuki) reminds him that he should go to Iceland.
Hirata’s parents died there seven years ago, and the seven year death anniversary is a significant event in Japanese culture. Hirata must perform a ceremony in the river where they died after drowning in an avalanche – the drowned must be fed by the surviving family members if they are to find peace.
Hirata goes to Iceland – to Reykjavík. His final destination is a remote river on the far side of the island. He encounters one mishap and misadventure after another. He first accidentally gets on a wrong bus filled with German tourists traveling to see the hot springs. He also confronts a language barrier; Hirata cannot speak any Icelandic, and knows very little English. After his first day's misadventures, Hirata decides to purchase an ancient, bright red Citroën DS to make the journey. During the long drive, Hirata meets several strange people along the way. These include the mystical woman who sells him the car, that only plays one radio station. Next, Hirata meets a local woman who collects photographs of funerals. The following day, Hirata meets two American hitchhiker/fugitives (Lili Taylor and Fisher Stevens), who turn out to be armed and dangerous who proceed to steal his car. Nearing his destination on foot, Hirata arrives in a small village where he meets an old man (Gísli Halldórsson) named Siggi, the owner of a local lodge who teaches Hirata how to drink the most potent alcoholic beverage in Iceland.
After explaining his determination to travel to where his parents died, Hirata is aided by Siggi who borrows a pair of Icelandic horses from a local farmer, and the two of them travel on horseback to Hirata's destination. After riding across an ice cap glacier, over a ridge and into the valley where Hirata's parents died, he dismounts and tells Siggi that he must go on alone to complete his journey. After traversing a rickety bridge to the river, Hirata arrives at the river bank where he performs his cleansing ceremony at last. He then rejoins Siggi waiting for him and they both ride on their horses down a gully where they make it to a beach and the final shot shows them riding down the coast towards a nearby coastal village which hopefully will have a ferry to take Hirata back to Reykjavik and presumably back to Japan.

























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