- Stellantis marks ten years of DS Automobiles with a design study inspired by the 1970s Citroen SM.
- The SM Tribute project began with SM-like sketches DS shared on social media back in 2020.
- Original SMs, built from 1970 to 1975, featured V6 engines from Maserati, then owned by Citroen.
DS Automobiles has marked the brand’s first decade as a separate carmaker with the SM Tribute, a concept inspired by the radical Citroen SM of the 1970s.
The low-slung gold and black coupe imagines how the Robert Opron-designed SM coupe launched in 1970 might look today if it had continued to evolve, rather than going out of production in 1975.
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Like the original SM, the concept has a long hood that tapers towards the floor and a glazed section that references the part of the nose where European models houses their innovative headlights that turned with the steering wheel.
Partially covered 22-inch rear wheels nod to the fully-faired spats on the 1970s car, and the swept-back C-pillar and wraparound rear screen also take cues from a machine that must have looked like it had beamed down from another planet when it debuted at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show.
The retro-inspired styling continues inside, where DS designers led by Thierry Metroz have fitted ribbed, hammock-shaped seats and an upper dashboard that echoes the contours of the original. But advanced as the 1970s SM was – besides the hydropneumatic suspension and swivelling lights it also featured a fiberglass wheel option and variable-assist steering – it didn’t have fully digital gauge pack, or a rectangular wheel containing another digital display.
DS doesn’t say what powers the concept, though the answer would inevitably be something electric, which would probably really suit a car like this. EV power wasn’t an option in the 1970s so the original SM borrowed a 2.7-liter V6 from Maserati, which was then owned by Citroen.
There’s zero chance DS will put the SM Tribute into production in this form, unfortunately, but it sounds like some of the ideas seen on it might make their way onto future DS projects.
“It is not our habit to disconnect from our other work, we have included a lot of details about what DS Automobiles models and our future projects are,” Metroz says.
That’s welcome news, because while the road cars DS Automobiles has pumped out in its first decade since splitting from Citroen have contained some interesting design details, they’ve so far completely failed to justify the name borrowed from the iconic DS sedan launched almost 70 years ago.
But with the debut of this concept, and an announcement earlier this year that the firm was looking to that original DS to help it make a new EV flagship, the next 10 years could be more interesting.
