Text and Images from Brandpower
The Challenge: take the two most beautiful cars ever
made, the sexiest babes on wheels that ever happened to roam the planet,
and put them together, literally. If this sounds totally crazy to you,
it’s because it is. Nobody attempted something so complicated, before.
The technical challenges are enormous even to the most skilled team of
mechanics and nobody, it must be said, ever dared to touch these holy
icons of design, two sweethearts which rank in the top 5 Car of the Century, a hall of fame where Ferdinand Porsche,
no less, figures as the first and foremost Car Engineer of the Century.
Citroen DS, designed in 1955 by italian designer and sculptor Flaminio
Bertoni, is still considered today the most advanced car ever produced,
for the amount of innovation it had in every detail.
The two cars are totally different in weight, shape and dynamics, not to
mention horsepower, and you can’t simply cut and glue them together.
Nevertheless, we decided to give it a go anyway and, before getting
started, we invited for a beer Stewart Johnson, a former engineer from
Inter Box Mechanics, and probably one of the most regarded experts in
the field. After a quick look at our drawings and scale models, he dryly
asked: “where are you going to place the engine?”. Good question, we
thought. Carried away by our own enthusiasm, we totally forgot that to
fit a Porsche 911 engine into the rear bonnet of a Citroen DS is as easy
as squeezing a pumpkin into a pea pod. “If you shift the engine 90°
horizontally,” Stewart suggested, “and slide the backseat 10 inches
forward, you get enough room. You want a lower center of gravity on a
car that’s going to be longer and higher than a regular 911.”. Our
question to Stewart Johnson, at that point, was quite obvious: “would
you consider to be the project leader?”. Stewart accepted, at one
condition: to be the first to drive the 911DS.
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