Objets D'Art?

I know from experience that owners of classic cars are often asked a question similar to: ‘why did you decide to buy a Citroen DS?’  It’s the classic enquiry from the semi-interested punter who sidles up to you at a car show as you proudly display your recently polished automotive treasure.  And if you own a classic you probably have your stock answer whatever that might be such as the life experiences, emotions or irrationality that compelled you to shell out your hard earned money in the first place. Not to mention the commitment to ongoing flows of cash that inevitably come thereafter as you try to prevent your motor from oxidising to its base chemicals as it so desperately wants to do.

It’s a question I have tried to answer as the owner of a 1973 Citroen DS20 (affectionately known as The Goddess). My response, though is not at all simple.  Yes, I saw the all the classic films in which these cars appear so prominently: The Day of the Jackal, Scarface, The Green Berets but I don’t remember thinking: I must have one of those!  No, the answer is much more elusive and, like the car itself, as beguiling and complex.

There have been many words written about how cars work – the nuts, bolts, linkages and doodads - and given the ground-breaking innovation and ahead-of-its-time styling the ‘D’ has had more than its share of verbiage expended upon it. So, for those with a taste for remarkable machinery, and getting their fingers greasy, then the D’s attractive and challenging features will normally be enough to make the purchase. But that’s not me.  I’m at best a ‘tinkerer’ and more than happy to leave all the heavy spanner-work to my trusty mechanic.

My desire for a 'Goddess ' is more esoteric and was surely born back in my student days studying French philosophy and in particular my ongoing admiration for the work of that polytechnic poster boy: Roland Barthes.  Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an in-depth analysis of the theoretical backwaters of France’s intellectual life but a little background will illuminate I think.  

You see Barthes was a pioneer in the field of structuralism or semiological analysis which, along with the work of Foucault, Levi-Strauss and others, was a way of asking not how things look, how they work or what they do but what things mean both formally and what is implied by them. And, in analysing these sub-texts (or as Barthes terms them: 'Myths'), it exposes how we are subtly ‘naturalised’ by the ruling elites to conduct our lives in a way which perpetuates the status quo. Phew!

As part of his own intellectual development Barthes wrote a series of light magazine articles (later anthologised in the very readable book: Mythologies) where he analysed elements of contemporary French life in the 50’s and developed his critique of what these (actually) mean. He looked at striptease, wrestling, steak frite and, germane to my point: ‘The New Citroen’ written when the DS was launched in 1955. To read this treatise there’s little mention of hydro-pneumatics, semi-automatic gearboxes or single spoke steering wheels. No, his view was much more left of field.  Here are some of the things he wrote in his article:

"I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of the era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object."  

'It is obvious that the new Citroen has fallen from the sky inasmuch as it appears at first sight as a superlative object.'

'We are therefore dealing here with a humanised art, and it is possible that the Deesse marks a change in the mythology of cars.'

'.........the Goddess is...the very essence of petit-bourgeois advancement.'

Not a whiff of hydraulic fluid there then or anything else mechanical for that matter. Boiling all this down Barthes’ conclusion was that the new Citroen was more than just a revolutionary step forward in car design it also telegraphed that post-war France was transforming into an age of modernity, where new materials, space age styling and state-of-the-art engineering are used to create remarkable consumer goods which also happen to be also desirable objets d’art. 

What is implied is that all patriotic French families: the petit bourgeoisie, would naturally aspire to ownership and that tout le monde would look upon the French middle class with envy. It was exactly what the mandarins at Citroen wanted as DS development project team leader Pierre Boulanger opined: “to show the world...that France could develop the ultimate vehicle”.

You see, I got a bit carried away there.?  I didn’t mean to, but I kind of proved my point in a way. In describing a car in those highly intellectual terms, the long dead Barthes (ironically run over in 1980 by a delivery van) deeply affected my juvenile, but receptive, undergraduate mind and had a powerful long-term effect. The DS represented to me not only my entry into the ranks of classic car enthusiasm but also the perfect synthesis of mechanical, philosophical and theoretical complexity which for some reason appeals directly to the way my mind is wired up.  It was, however, a seed that had to lie dormant whilst I got about the business of earning some money for the next couple of decades. 

Then along came the moment when all this gelled into affirmative action. When travelling home from my work in 2001 I saw a pristine ‘D’ gliding effortlessly down the motorway weaving nonchalantly through the traffic with all the Gallic insouciance you’d expect from a languid goddess. And yes, it did look to me like a thing of wonder; a magical object, a piece of automotive art  not like a cathedral perhaps but just as profound. It was in one amazing object a thing from the past and the very definition of a car of the future and I decided there and then I would have one. And even at 60 mph, I again entered a pseudo-intellectual reverie from which I had to exit very quickly to slam on my brakes to avoid rear-ending the suddenly stopped car in front.

One wonders whether there are other classic cars that could be looked at in exactly the same way or whether such philosophical conceits can only be achieved within the French intellectual tradition. Maybe the Model T Ford represented the American dream of freedom and the open road. Was the Mini a triumph of British pragmatic engineering and innovation in the ‘white heat’ of the nineteen sixties? I’ll let you decide.

As a final coda, now after several years of ownership, when my D ‘fails to proceed’ (as it often does) and it’s returned to my house on the back of a breakdown truck (with a big bill in prospect) it’s not Roland Barthes’ name that passes through my mind. No, it’s something. much more profane. It’s what Monsieur Barthes would have aptly described as the very definition of hubris. Zut alors!

Copyright Anthony Boe 2014 all rights reserved