The DS19 Convertible was the proof that a small coachbuilder could convince a significant carmaker to produce a vehicle that they didn’t want to make.
When Citroen introduced the DS at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, it became a show-stopper. It was the most successful car in history, and its first 24 hours sales were so high that only the Tesla Model 3 could exceed them decades later. But in 1955, the orders were made either in persona or by phone, and an army of clerks had to typewrite the orders. Citroen’s management was happy as long as the orders kept coming, but they forgot about particular developments. It was an era when people started to enjoy freedom again, and the open-top vehicles began to appear in most carmakers’ offers. But Citroen considered that the rag-top 2CV was enough for them. For their customers, it wasn’t.

Henry Chapron, a small entrepreneur, was a coachbuilder who worked for several carmakers before WWII. He took a standard DS, reinforced its structure, and cut its roof. He made the first open-top DS and unveiled it at the 1958 Paris Motor Show. The orders started to pile up, and he could barely keep up with them. He tried to convince Citroen’s management to sell him unfinished DS products without rear and side windows and rear doors so that he could transform them into convertibles. They disagreed, so he had to buy them from various dealers. Also, his customers were encouraged to buy the cars and get them for conversions.

That situation lasted for almost two years before Citroen finally cut a deal with the French coachbuilder. The carmaker supplied empty bodies to Chapron, he converted them, and Citroen sold them through their dealership network only starting with 1960.