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Imagine that you are in the
process of consulting a photo album
displaying hundreds of different models of your chosen car in
the
presence of a specialist who with his expert's eye can share
with you
his comments on each image down to the last detail. This one,
is it
original, is the colour correct, should a car of that year
have that
particular accessory, what year is it.....here you will find
the
answers to all these questions and many more; a veritable mine
of
information which only a respected marque specialist can
provide.
This specialist is Olivier de
Serre, writer of many works on Citroen
and especially on the Traction and DS. He imparts his knowledge
with
brio and amazes us with the depth of his knowledge and the
acuity of
his observations. Most of the photography here comes from the
archives
of the weekly ‘La Vie de l’Auto' which has written about the
world of
collectors’ cars for over thirty years, reporting on classic
vehicle
meetings and providing a market place for collectors to
advertise.
This work is the first of what
will certainly be an extensive series
dedicated to the classic cars we love, and not just the DS ...."
As stated above, Olivier de Serres is well-known to many
enthusiasts
for his authoritative and well-researched books so my
expectations were
high. Unfortunately, it fell short on a number of
scores.
Firstly,
the registration numbers of the cars have been Photoshopped to
ensure
they are not legible. This has been crudely done with
white,
black or
yellow rectangles that do not line up with the dimensions of the
number
plates. A minor point you might think but I found myself
increasingly
irritated, especially when de Serres refers to the registration
number
which is illegible. Secondly, some of the images are badly
cropped
with bits of the cars missing. Thirdly, some of the
pictures are
very
low resolution and fourthly, they are all too small to allow one
to
observe the detail on which de Serres comments.
And then there is the text which suffers from a number of
shortcomings. On the whole, the translations are good but
occasionally, errors creep in; errors which indicate to me that
the
translator is not a ‘petrol head’. An example of this is “DS20
Pallas
1968/9 Promotional claim that year <<it is at the same
speed that
one discovers superior cars>> It was the period of the
first
speed limits.” I had to read the French to work
out what
was meant –
it should have said, “it is at high speed that one appreciates
superior
cars”.
Then there are occasional orthographical errors, most noticeable
in
words where there are slightly different spellings in French and
English and where the French prevails. Then there is the
hyphenation
of words – in French, syllables generally end with a vowel; in
English
they generally end with a consonant. The hyphens are
consistently
misplaced between vowel and consonant. And then there are
a
number of
typesetting errors with a few words of the French text included
in the
middle of the English text.
My biggest gripe though is de Serres’ comments on the photos
which are
frequently repetitive; contain critiques of the photographers’
composition and sometimes seem unrelated to the particular
image.
An example of this is “The
big front
wings with their <<cats’
eyes>> involved considerable sheet metal work even
without c (new
line) ounting the wiring for the directional headlights.”
This occurs
some twenty pages in from the second part of the book which
covers
models from 1968 to 1975. Had it occurred at the beginning
of
this
section where the final facelift is discussed, this would have
made
sense. Sometimes, the information given is wrong, for
instance
the 'strapontins' (additional fold down seats in the Familiale)
are
described as 'rear facing' and the DS23ie's badge is described
wrongly
as having the words 'Injection Électronique' above 'DS 23'
whereas it
is in fact below it.
It comes across as a guessing game where someone shows him a
photo and
asks him to identify the model, year, etc. After a while,
this
becomes
rather tedious and the sheer number of photos of all too similar
cars
adds to the tedium.
There are very few pictures of unusual cars (apart from Henri
Chapron’s
creations); just a couple of US market cars and a Belgian-built
one but
nothing from Slough.
De Serres is critical of most of the attempts at
personalisation; he
clearly disdains the fitting of accessories, especially if they
are not
from the right period and he makes the point, repeatedly, that a
car
must have been used for towing whenever wing mirrors are
fitted.
I really wanted to like this book and I am sure that
some people
will enjoy it. For the D enthusiast who wants something
different,
this book makes a change from all those books that simply rehash
the
history of this model. The concept is great but it falls
down in
the
execution which is a great pity. The cover states that
this is
Volume
1. Let us hope that Volume 2 does not repeat these issues
and
that if
Volume 1 goes into a second print run, the errors are
corrected.
The book was first published in 2012 but a review copy was only
sent to
me recently. I find myself wondering whether the
publishers have
a large quantity of unsold stock.
This book cannot be recommended at the list price. If it
cost
€20, it would be overpriced. A great disappointment.
© 2014 Julian Marsh
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