The most beautiful French car of the postwar era is the Citroën DS Décapotable by Henri Chapron. The DS itself, unveiled at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, was already a break with the prevailing logic of car design. Aerodynamic and futuristic, it drew 12,000 orders on its first day. Roland Barthes called it “a change in the mythology of cars,” and decades later an international jury would name it the most beautiful car of all time. That judgment was rendered on the sedan, but the four-door was a concession to use. The idea runs cleaner without it.
In Chapron’s hands the DS resolves. The Décapotable’s handmade doors were lengthened by four inches to balance the profile once the rear doors and B-pillars were gone. The one-piece rear quarter panels, reshaped tail, and lightweight fiberglass boot lid establish a continuous taper from the low, raked windscreen to the trailing edge of the car. Reinforced sills and underbody bracing preserve structural integrity, so the hydropneumatic suspension keeps its level, unruffled ride. The proportions settle into something classical without surrendering the car’s strangeness. Only 1,365 were built between 1960 and 1971, each hand-finished with bespoke trim in fifteen paints, thirteen leather colors, and three carpet hues. With the roof stowed, the car reads as a complete sentence.
The only French car that surpasses it sets the limit of the category. The 1937 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS “Goutte d’Eau” Coupé by Figoni et Falaschi remains the reference point for automotive beauty. Sixteen were made, each unique. Its form is all curve and taper, executed with the discipline of coachbuilt craft. The proportions and surfacing have not been bettered.
Everything that follows is measured against that standard. The DS Décapotable earns its position because it translates the prewar language of streamline moderne into a postwar, industrial idiom without losing coherence. In that hierarchy, the Teardrop stands first, the DS Décapotable second. After that, the exercise becomes classification.
Flaminio Bertoni’s DS was always conceived with an open variant in mind. The production sedan delivered the engineering program, but the pillarless car clarifies the form. Early on, Citroën had little capacity for indulgence. The DS’s hydraulic systems required sustained attention, and the factory’s priorities were elsewhere. Henri Chapron proceeded regardless. In 1958 he presented La Croisette, an unauthorized DS-based cabriolet built by purchasing complete sedans, cutting them apart, and re-bodying them as two-door convertibles. Demand settled the question. By 1960 Citroën formalized the arrangement and sold the “Cabriolet Usine” through its dealers. It became the range’s prestige model without altering the underlying thesis of the car.
The conversion is a re-proportioning, not a subtraction. Lengthened front doors correct the visual balance and improve access. The absence of a B-pillar removes the visual stop in the side view, so the eye runs from windscreen to tail without interruption. With no roof dome to carry the shape, the beltline and rear fenders assume the work. The rear section resolves into a controlled taper, the fin line understated and continuous. The result is not a modified sedan so much as the diagram behind it.
What was eccentric in the four-door becomes legible here. The floating roof is gone, along with the height it required. The long bonnet and flattened tail establish a proper grand touring proportion, while the surfaces remain distinctly DS. The rear fender line now runs uninterrupted through the section once occupied by the rear doors. Curves and planes align. The car’s oddness does not disappear; it organizes.
Structurally, the work is exacting. Removing the roof requires reinforcement, which Chapron provides through strengthened sills and underbody bracing. The cabriolet retains the rigidity expected of a closed car. Citroën approved the changes and sold the cars with a full factory warranty. The rear becomes a single sweep of coachbuilt bodywork, replacing the sedan’s rear door and C-pillar assembly. The deck is reconfigured to house the folding hood under a flush cover, and the boot lid is molded in fiberglass for fit and weight. Indicators and trim are repositioned to preserve line. The finished object reads as if it had always been this way.
Mechanically, nothing essential is surrendered. The hydropneumatic suspension remains intact, with its self-leveling behavior and composure over poor surfaces. The additional reinforcement adds little mass, so the car’s character is unchanged. Power-assisted steering, the centrifugal brake pressure regulator, inboard discs, and, on later cars, steerable headlamps are all retained. The engineering argument survives the edit.
Each example is finished to order. Fifteen paint colors, thirteen leathers, three carpets yield seventy-six combinations. Brightwork is applied with restraint along the flanks, emphasizing length without interrupting the surface. Wheel covers and interior materials follow the same logic. The intervention elevates the car without adding noise.
In period, the Décapotable was scarce and expensive, priced at nearly twice the sedan. The clientele followed accordingly. Across the full run, 1,365 factory-authorized DS and ID cabriolets were produced. Of these, 483 were DS21 models. Production ended in 1971, with a small number completed afterward by Chapron, the last delivered in 1978.
The car establishes that advanced engineering and resolved form are not opposing aims. Its stance and taper carry forward into the SM, and Chapron’s SM Mylord repeats the open-car logic directly. The line of French coachbuilding does not end here, but it becomes harder to trace.
The DS appears in major art and design collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That recognition typically points to the sedan. In this configuration, the idea is cleaner. The Décapotable stands alongside the Talbot-Lago Teardrop as a separate answer to the same problem, proportion, taper, and inevitability, executed under different conditions.
Only the Figoni et Falaschi Teardrop of 1937 surpasses the DS Décapotable in beauty. The Talbot-Lago is a singular object of Art Deco coachwork. The DS Décapotable is the postwar resolution of the same pursuit. Teardrop first, DS Décapotable second. Beyond that, the discussion is administrative.