Announced in October 1955 and startling enough that Citroën reportedly took 743 orders in the first fifteen minutes of the Paris Motor Show, the DS paired a hydropneumatic suspension system (self-levelling, driver-adjustable ride height, powering the brakes, steering and clutch as well as the suspension) with a body shape so aerodynamic it still ranks well ahead of most cars built decades later on Wikipedia’s own drag-coefficient list.[1] A cheaper submodel, the ID, arrived in 1957 with the same body but a conventional clutch and less power, aimed at buyers the DS itself had priced out.
The horsepower figures recorded here span two different measurement standards without being a genuine conflict: European sources quote DIN (metric) horsepower throughout the car’s life, while the DS23’s fuel-injected engine is separately quoted at 141 hp under the American SAE gross standard for the same physical output. The DIN figure is used consistently here, matching the German-market convention this catalogue applies elsewhere. Production ran for twenty years without a true second generation (what changed was the engine, the electronics and the trim, not the car underneath), so this one entry, with its evolution recorded as trims, covers the whole run from 1955 to 1975.
