DS will use the Chantilly Arts and Elegance show to celebrate ten years of being a brand in its own right. It’s going to show off this concept car, the SM Tribute, as a kind of four-wheeled birthday cake.
DS is the French luxury car manufacturer originally spun out from Citroen and named for Citroen’s most famous model - and a candidate for the greatest car ever made - the original 1955 Citroen DS.
What’s this concept car about?
This concept car, the SM Tribute, harks back to another great Citroen model, the SM coupe of the 1970s. Although never officially described as a DS coupe, the SM was that and more. A stunning shape designed by one of the greatest car designers - Robert Opron - and mixing a 2.7-litre Maserati V6 engine (Citroen actually owned Maserati at the time) with the DS’s famous hydropneumatic suspension, the SM is considered a landmark design classic.
“We are working on the genes of our iconic models to fuel our research into the shape of future models that will come along at the end of the decade” said Thierry Metroz, DS Automobiles Design Director. "What we’re sharing, which dates from 2020, and our presence in Chantilly with SM Tribute bear witness to this activity and our research on the subject. Our community sent us several strong messages during this sketch sharing. The first was that it was very attached to the iconic models from our heritage. The second was that it didn’t want the original design to be spoilt. We wanted to go further. We want to nurture our legacy through our icons which are the DS and SM. We draw our commitment to avant-garde design from it.”
Does it copy the original SM’s shape?
So the SM Tribute shares some of the original SM’s dramatic sharp-nosed, leaning-back shape, complete with disguised rear wheels. In the original SM, the rear wheels are covered by aerodynamic ‘spats’, while on the SM Tribute, the bodywork flows around the centre of the 22-inch rear wheels, leaving the top and bottom of the tyre exposed.
The body of the SM Tribute is painted in a shade called Gold Leaf, which featured in the original SM brochure in 1971. It has been given a satin finish with a hand-rubbed ‘patina.’ It contrasts with a special contrasting black paint.
Where the original car had distinctive headlights behind a plexiglass panel, the SM Tribute has a 3D screen that lights up to its middle, framed by a light signature made up of three modules on each side - just like the original headlights - enhanced by eight diamond-tipped and vertical DRLs based on a triad shape meeting at a point like a ship's bow.
Frédéric Soubirou, DS Automobiles Head of Exterior Design, said: “We were inspired by studying several SM models, including prototypes and the two presidential SMs. They had a striking trait, like a signature. They gave the impression of flying on the road, they were very aerial. We added some very current symbols of our work to it.”
Inside, the original car had a distinctive single-spoke steering wheel, but the SM Tribute gets an oblong-shaped wheel with steer-by-wire computer-controlled steering. There’s a dramatic centre console that sweeps up into a tall touchscreen, while the dashboard curves over the main instrument panel. The high-backed seats have leather ribs in seventies-style.
Will DS actually build it?
“It's not just a portrayal of the SM,” said Thierry Metroz. “The DS Design Studio Paris team had fun with an ambitious project. We have respected the original design through its spirit and details. We have done a transcript and reinterpretation of the SM. But as it is not our habit to disconnect from our other work, we have included a lot of details about what DS Automobiles models and our future projects are.”