Loisirs du Sénateur

The Déesse (French for goddess) from Citroën is a legend in itself, but a DS Cabriolet is probably one of the most elegant cars ever built. Since the 50th anniversary of the DS models in 2005 at the latest, when a cabriolet was sold for around €175,000 at the celebrations in Paris, these rare vehicles have been part of the automotive hautevolée. After the DS saloons saw the light of day in 1955, Citroën contacted the French coachbuilder Henri Chapron in 1956 to check the strength of the cabriolet designed by Flaminio Bertoni (Bertoni had also designed the saloon). In 1959, Citroën ordered a prototype of the DS cabriolet. Citroën was satisfied and placed an order for series production. However, as the production of the cabriolets was very expensive, Citroën entrusted the production directly to Henri Chapron. The resulting cabriolets, still called Décapotable at the time, are known today as works cabriolets or Cabriolet d’Usine in French. A total of 1,385 such factory cabriolets were built. In addition, Henri Chapron produced 289 special bodies called Croisette, Paris, Caddy, Dandy, Palm Beach, Concorde, Leman, Majesty and Lorraine. Only the so-called factory convertibles were, however, prospected and sold through Citroën and provided with a factory warranty. Due to the high value of such a vehicle, many ‘normal’ DSs have been converted into cabriolets over the years, and it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish genuine cabriolets from replicas. In 2009, a DS Cabriolet was auctioned at Retro Classic in Paris for €338,000 and the previous price record was achieved by the last factory Cabriolet built for €394,000. When you consider that the rear indicator lights alone cost almost €1,800 and that restoring such a vehicle is extremely time-consuming (see also our restoration example), the price is put into perspective. Details or not, rocking through the countryside in a convertible like this is an indescribable driving experience that no other open-top car has even come close to achieving!

This DS 21 Injection Électronique Cabriolet with manual five-speed gearbox was delivered to a well-known French senator in Nice on 14 September 1970. As Citroën delivered the last official factory cabriolet in August 1971, this is a car from the last model year with the most powerful engine offered at the time. The Senator only used the elegant vehicle for outings in fine weather and always parked it in his dry garage. The car remained in his hands until 2006, when he gave it to his chauffeur as a thank-you gift for his decades of loyal service. His chauffeur was delighted, but was unable and unwilling to take care of the vehicle in the long term and put it up for sale in 2009. On 22 November 2009, there was a test drive in Nice with a gentleman from Berlin, who then bought the car. The last photo in the photo gallery is from this test drive and shows the car in extremely good original condition.

The new owner from Berlin is a collector of special French classic cars and had the car completely dismantled in Radebeul and repainted in the original colour gris sahara metalliseé AC 111. The car was stripped down to the bodyshell and only in the boot were there two coins of corrosion damage, which were repaired. The bodywork is therefore in very good condition and, apart from these small areas, is still in its original sheet metal condition. The leather of the seats and the carpet have also been renewed true to the original. The door panels and the still immaculate soft top are still the parts that Henri Chapron installed in 1970! The soft top is a rare artificial leather soft top that Chapron offered as an expensive optional extra instead of a standard fabric soft top. After the new paintwork, i.e. before the car was reassembled, the entire technology was completely overhauled, including the engine, which was dismantled and rebuilt with new pistons, cylinder liners, bearings and even a new cylinder head. The speedometer was replaced with a used one (there is no longer a new part) with around 20,000 kilometres less on the counter than the car was actually driven. The real mileage was 86,044 kilometres in Nice in 2009. Immediately afterwards, the car went into rebuilding and since then not a single kilometre has been driven! The car has always been driven in Germany with red licence plates, so it has not yet been registered in Germany. The owner from Berlin now spends more time in the south of France than in Germany and as he still has a DS Cabriolet in France, he has given it to us for sale.

Our test drives were a delight, and the engine is so powerful that it’s hard to believe that the engine develops significantly more power. The car comes with the delivery invoice for 40,240 francs (around DM 25,000 at the time), the Notice Descriptive from Citroën and probably all the Senator’s maintenance records up to 2009. Of the 24 DS Cabriolets that were in our workshop, only the cars we restored ourselves were definitely in similarly good condition. Des Senators Leidenschaft – Loisirs du Sénateur – could be in your garage as early as this spring.

We have thoroughly inspected the car and have drawn up three offers based on this research. Our Économie offer for €249,000 refers to the inspected and roadworthy vehicle including a major inspection, new classic Michelin tyres, as well as a new general inspection and an H certificate. The standard offer for €252,000 also includes the installation of reversing lights, a paint polish and cavity and underbody preservation with wax. The Suprême offer for €255,000 includes the retrofitting of three-point automatic front seat belts and ceramic sealing of the paintwork. We will be happy to send you the details of our offer proposals.