SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

It's 70 years since Citroën's long-awaited 'Voiture à Grande Diffusion' debuted an innovative suspension system - setting a standard for the three generations that followed

- Daniel Bevis

Received wisdom tells us that French executive cars don’t sell. Yet for 57 years Citroën pulled off a remarkable trick, in which it presented deliberately odd cars to an unsuspecting market - weird cars for ordinary people. And once this weirdness is in your bloodstream, it never leaves. This weirdness is otherwise known as liquide hydraulique minérale, a cartoonish green goo that makes the fabled magic carpet ride possible, coursing through the veins of Citroën's innovative hydropneumatic suspension systems. It was publicly trialled in 1954 on the back end of the Traction Avant, and was so far ahead of its time that in 1985 a press release for the CX Series 2 said: ‘If such a system were announced for the first time today, it would undoubtedly be heralded as setting new technical standards.’

The myriad legends surrounding it tell you all you need to know: it saved Charles de Gaulle from assassination, it smoothed out France's pockmarked post-war road network, it was so good that Rolls-Royce licensed it for the Silver Shadow. And while it found homes in the luxe SM and less-luxe GS, BX, Xsara and C5, the natural home for hydropneumatic suspension was in the full-size DS, CX, XM and C6 saloons. So join us for a supremely relaxing ride through all four generations.