8mm film: the DS19 at the Grand Palais, press tests and the 1956 Monte-Carlo Rally

In this document

No textual transcription has been provided for this page (5-5): the document is an 8mm film, and no subtitles, title cards or captions have been transmitted for analysis. It is therefore not possible to cite specific content here with page numbers, due to a lack of transcribed material.

The only description available indicates that Paul Magès films there, with an 8mm camera in hand, the presentation of the new DS 19 at the Grand Palais motor show in Paris, surrounded by the cars of the era. The film continues with "press tests" around the Vélizy airfield, tests in Provence, then the 1956 Monte-Carlo Rally, in which six DS19s participate.

In the absence of a detailed transcription (dialogues, title cards, dates visible on screen), no additional element can be attested here: the precise circumstances of the filming, the people present or any potential commentary remain unspecified.

Context

As a reference external to the document: the DS 19 was presented by Citroën to the public for the first time at the Paris Motor Show, at the Grand Palais, on 6 October 1955 — an event that remains famous in automotive history for the immediate enthusiasm it generated. Paul Magès was the engineer responsible for its development at the time, the culmination of work begun with his hydropneumatic suspension plans of 17 February 1944 (Hydropneumatic suspension plans with differential interaction) and his tests conducted in 1946 on the 2 CV (Notebook of the first tests of the 2 CV with hydropneumatic suspension) and then in 1954 on the 15-Six (Test of the 15-Six H, 3-5 April 1954).

The 1956 Monte-Carlo Rally is one of the very first international competitions where the DS19, equipped with its hydropneumatic suspension designed by Paul Magès, was entered in competition, helping to demonstrate the qualities of the system to the public and the specialist press.

These elements of general context are not guaranteed by the document itself, for which no transcription has been provided.

Archivist's perspective

This amateur film likely occupies a special place in the archives of Paul Magès: it seems to bear witness, from his own point of view as an engineer, to the very first public moments of the invention to which he devoted a large part of his career — a career spanning 49 years at Citroën, from his entry in August 1925 to his retirement in September 1974 (Draft letter from Paul Magès to Mr. Sarre ; Photographs of the retirement party) — the hydropneumatic suspension equipping the DS19.

The transition from the Grand Palais to the Vélizy press tests, then to Provence and the Monte-Carlo Rally, draws a sort of validation path for the innovation, from the Parisian showcase to the test of the terrain and competition — but this reading remains a hypothesis of thematic grouping, in the absence of a precise page-by-page transcription.

This document can usefully be compared with another filmed testimony gathering images related to the DS, The fabulous story of the DS, by Serge Dubor, as well as the later montage In the shadow of our sister the DS, by Pierre Magès, son of Paul Magès who also draws and films (Caricature of Paul Magès drawn by his son Pierre), and who could resume or comment on some of these sequences.

The dating remains unspecified in the document itself: no clue of an exact date is available in the transmitted elements, only the general historical context (1955-1956), established elsewhere in the collection, allows for the approximate location of the filmed events.