COBI Citroen DS 19 1956 - Executive Edition Set 24350

COBI's Citroën DS 19 Executive Edition is a 1:12 model built from 2,467 blocks under original licence from Citroën, 40 cm long, in the black bodywork with white roof of President de Gaulle's car. Doors and boot open, the steering turns the front wheels, and a brick-built engine sits under the bonnet. The set includes a display stand with a nameplate and a brick flagpole carrying the French tricolour.

Petit-Clamart, 14 August 1962

A DS carrying Charles de Gaulle, his wife and his son-in-law drove into an ambush in a Paris suburb. Around a dozen gunmen opened fire on the car with automatic weapons; roughly 150 rounds were fired and fourteen hit it. Two tyres were shot out.

The driver accelerated away. He could do that because of what the car sat on: hydropneumatic suspension carries the body on fluid and nitrogen rather than on the tyres' sidewalls, so losing pressure in two of them did not put the car on its rims or send it into a spin. It went front-wheel-drive, flat-tyred, straight down the road and out of the killing zone. Nobody in the car was hurt.

De Gaulle is said to have remarked afterwards that the marksmanship had been poor. What actually saved him was the engineering, and it is the reason the DS became the presidential car of France rather than merely a fashionable one.

In the COBI range

This is the Executive Edition of the DS 19. Set 24347 is the same car in the standard edition at a lower price. COBI also makes the DS 21 Pallas (24348) and the Chapron convertible (24346).

Specifications

Pieces: 2,467 · Scale: 1:12 · Licensed by Citroën · Also included: display stand and French flag
Model dimensions: 40 × 15 × 12.5 cm (15.8 × 5.9 × 4.9 in)