1964 Citroen ID19 DS Safari - an Iconic Avant-garde French Family Wagon | Collecting Cars 

Its onee of , if not the , most beautiful cars . Full stop .

Not really: Delage, Talbot-Lago, Delahaye, Bugatti.

@@wholeNwon I think really

@@pooddescrewch8718 Though not especially this model, I've long been a fan of the DS, including the convertible. Used to use one several times a week as a grad student.

@@wholeNwon and ?

To have a wagon such as this in your childhood memories is amazing!!! I can only imagine the color, but with such a gorgeous design, any color would look royal! *I drive a '63 nova wagon, the smells of that car bring me right back to riding in family wagons :) Cheers to those cars for being more than just a car, part of the family~

Made the same mistake when I sold my 1972 DS 20..in 1986...seriously regret that decision

Currently I still own a Citroen cx....but still...it is Not the DS

@@elvistsakane121 DO not sell your cx 😉

@@YOUENNNN yeah..I won't make that mistake again 👍 thanks

@@YOUENNNN where are you based ?

So tiny for such a huge lawn. Must work night and day.

Yes the DS is more high tech

One of those you saw was probably my family's car.....they were great for Australia with superb ride and stability.....servicing was not suited to Aussie mechanics however....You had to have a passion for them and be practical enough to do it yourself or find a very expensive specialist in the inner suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne. When cars came out with air conditioning it made the DS less suitable to Australia because few had an Air conditioning system installed....back in the day you would also have to put up with Aussies laughing at you and saying what a ugly car you have. I miss the DS every day as I bump up and down in my modern car....

Hear in my part of the world they were Always expensive.

@@worldtraveler930 You "travel the world" so you should have moved perhaps....haha

Well, I DID buy a DS -- actually a D-Special, a sort of base model version of the DS -- a ten-year-old car when I came upon it in Vancouver, Canada in 1980. I was around 30 at the time and not especially flush with cash. Even though the first owner had taken good care of it, and there was an honest Citroën-specialty service shop for future maintenance, the car nickel-and-dimed me to death for a couple of years before I gave up and sold it. Having grown up with DS sedans, I was well aware what wonderful cars they were. But my Dad's succession of DS and Pallas models were purchased new and kept no longer than a year. A decade-old DS teaches you pretty quickly that these cars were not built to last. A lot of hard plastic is used on the interior. In Canadian winters the salt rusted them put in a couple of years. And these complex cars required skilled maintenance and a lot of it. That said, the car never stranded me. A friend and I did a huge loop of the western and central U.S. states in great comfort and efficiency. This big sedan got 30 mpg on its antiquated engine, a tribute to the car's aerodynamics. In all I don't regret having owned it. But I would caution anyone contemplating a '70s-era DS today is going to need deep pockets and alternative transportation.

I first saw one in the very early 1960s ina small country town in the Midlands of Tasmania, Australia. Was a 5 or 6 year old then and came from a family of Buick owners. One Sunday morning I walked out of the Anglican church and parked there was a new Citroen DS3. An amazing car amongst a few boring Holdens and Fords. Walked over to it and studied every curve and design element and then a woman, wife of a wealthy merino sheep farmer, friends of my parents, said hello Rod, replied hello Mrs Burbury. She asked me if I liked that car and I replied it is like a spaceship and yes I like it very much. I suddenly realised and asked her if it was her car, it was. She then asked me if I would like a lift home and of course I replied in the affirmative. What a car. Have been a Citroen fan ever since and in 1986 I bought a Citroen ID19 in Adelaide, South Australia, a 1965 model. Many people say they are complex mechanically and people who understands them say they are more simple than many realise, once you overcome the fear of the differences to bland engineering.

Tim...Could you also include my Citroen Mehari which i keep in Provence for my annual cycing trips from Australia? Simply extraordinary. Les Griffiths

@Fredrik Larsson I believe so

Yes - in order to get round import duties, this car was assembled in Slough with a certain proportion of UK components, hence the Jaeger gauges and Lucas lighting. My dad bought it in 1965, at one year old (both the car...and me!).

Definitely built in slough.

Nah, Jobs wasn’t a car guy. He drove a boring Mercedes. Now Wozniak on the other hand . . .

Nice analogy...this was my dad's car for 39 years, and he was a keen photographer. Bronica and Canon... couldn't afford Hasselblad! 😆

I’m in my 20s and I couldn’t agree more!

Amen to that. They are incredibly smooth and quiet.

You did Liam, it was taken down after I posted a comment saying that the presenter had his facts wrong.......he stated that the estate had fixed headlights and the coupe/saloon had swivel headlights. In fact they all had fixed from launch in 1955 to 1967 and then all had swivel......they re edited and cut that bit out. If CC are trying to build a customer base to sell their cars on the CC platform I expect CC to know more about vehicles than me.....mind you I did have a DS 5 Super.

If normally maintained it works flawlessly. I had two BX, changed the spheres myself

A well looked after system is super reliable. Maintenance is key as with any wonderful piece of engineering. It’s actually modern materials that make them unreliable. Poor quality rubber parts etc…

the original DS was designed to take a flat 6.... air cooled... they ran out of money

Yes...this long-stroke plodder from the Light 15 wasn't really powerful enough. But the SM got this suspension and the Maserati (?) V6, of course.

Nah . . . A resto mod DS safari would be terrible. I know it's a current vogue but many old cars are just fine as they are and all the character can get lost . If you drive them as intended they're fine .

It is the hydraulic fluid reservoir, for suspension, brakes, steering.

Correct - Slough built, with plenty of UK parts to get round import duties.

Actually the glass on the lights doesn’t relate to the model being DS or ID - this was just a design change in the car in 1967. Also the early DS up to 1967 didn’t have turning headlamps. ID (or D Super or Special as they were later called) didn’t always have turning and levelling headlamps but many people fitted it.

The Safari version is something in between, it did not exist in ID/DS versions. Officially it was an ID, but it had some DS features and always the mushroom brake.

@@DSReval Correct...I can vouch for this car's originality, though it didn't have the spotlights when my dad bought it in 1965. And the boot had a nice navy blue carpet, not that rubber mat. And the wheels were black, plus it had no seatbelts.

@Alfred Wedmore But they've got stupid low profile tyres on and firm suspension, totally defeats the object. SUVs are a fashion/trend/fad, people buy them because everyone else has one.

The D series includes the original DS and later simpler ID with less complexities. My Aussie assembled 1962 ID19 had manual gear change and steering and the brake button was disguised with a pedal. Vinyl seats, basic carpet, vinyl roof lining on aluminium, not fibreglass.

You are correct but I kind of like the wooden Dash.

Spot on, Giles!

That dashboard is the one which was installed in Slough, where this car was assembled. It had fewer cracks back then, though!