In 1961, a special Citroën DS with a transparent roof was built. Its story did not end on the day it carried the U.S. President back to Le Bourget airport. A few years later, Gérard Vion, who had been Citroën’s commercial director in Paris during the Kennedys’ visit, was appointed general manager of Citroën Italia. In 1965, when the great Italian director Elio Petri requested a car for a film set in a futuristic Rome, Vion provided him with that panoramic-roof DS19, the one John and Jacqueline had used in Paris.
In The Tenth Victim, it appears driven by Marcello Mastroianni, where the only alteration was seen in the steering wheel, replaced by a control stick. At ease in both history and cinema, the “goddess” of cars remains timeless withstanding the test of time without aging.
