French bred: Tracing the lineage of our brilliant Clio R27 unearths some great French classics

摘要

"The French they are a peculiar race." So concluded the defining rhyme that, scanning their antics from bedroom to battlefield, taught my generation that the French are, well... different. Of course, at that time in our education we were all much keener on wheels than wordplay, but the talk on the street was just the same. Who else on this Earth would build a Citroen? The Americans, then as now, built their cars to celebrate the current mood of the military and, from battlestars to the current bunkers, we've at least understood them. The British built theirs in layers of leather for ease of social identity and, because the Italians treat every toddler-run as a targa, their cars have historically evinced both the attitude and, sadly, aptitude, to die in the quest for glory. But only the French could choose romance as a theme for manufacture. And, accordingly, only the French could have produced, in Citroen's DS 'Goddess', both one of the most admired cars ever built and one with an ownership made up almost exclusively of artists, seducers and lunatics.