Henry de Ségur Lauve & Citroën

One day in early 1960, the French consulate in Detroit organised a cocktail party. Because of his knowledge of the French language, designer Henry De Ségur Lauve was invited along as an interpreter. At the party, he met Pierre Bercot, general manager of Citroën. They got talking about Citroën design and Bercot invited De Ségur Lauve for a meeting in Paris. That conversation went positively and in May 1960 De Ségur Lauve signed a cooperation agreement with Citroën to produce design proposals that suited the taste of American consumers.

From then on, De Ségur Lauve came out with a fair number of sketches with a decidedly American influence for new models. The first designs are still sometimes reminiscent of facelifted DSs, but soon they look more like spacecraft than cars for everyday use. De Ségur Lauve had access to Citroën’s design studio and could see what the designers were working on, which allowed him to create ‘Americanised’ variants based on those models. Examples found in this book include proposals for the later Citroën CX and the interior of the Citroën SM.

Much of De Ségur Lauves spectacular designs ended up in the Citroën archives and were forgotten. After more than 50 years, this book showcases his work prominently for the first time. A unique piece of Citroën history!