The Cybertruck is the Citroen DS of 2023. Maybe.

The Citroen DS came out in 1955, and anyone with any interest in automobiles was blown away. It changed all the rules for automotive design and engineering forever. It didn't look like anything else on the market. Compare it to a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, and while today we might consider that a beautiful car, it's really a big refrigerator box with a chrome grille.

The DS was swoopy and graceful and looked much more like the idea of a futuristic spaceship than a car you can drive every day. The world took notice and they sold 12,000 of them on the first day, a record that held till Tesla offered their first car with the power of the internet to fuel sales.

Now, the Cybertruck is looking to change everything again.

And while I contend it's the dumbest name in history, it's shaking up the automotive world just like the DS did. And after reading a lot of positive and negative reviews, it's pretty apparent the parallels are there. Andre Citroen told his designers and engineers to throw out everything they thought a car should be and build something unlike the rest of the world. They spent years developing the design and engineering to be totally unique. In short, a suspension without springs or shocks but spheres full of nitrogen gas, a transmission in front of the engine, huge disk brakes mounted on the transmission with cooling tunnels instead of being on the wheels, front-wheel drive, body panels that simply bolt to an internal subframe and a very low drag coefficient and a collapsable steering column and in the 1960s, the addition of turning and self-leveling headlights.

This was pretty insane for 1955 and to this day, driving one feels much more modern than any car produced in that era. I've been driving one for a dozen years and it's quite nice and more comfortable than anything made today.

The Cybertruck (have I mentioned it's the dumbest name ever?) is promising the same kind of shake-up.

It doesn't look like anything else. The engineering and design parameters are totally unique and the automotive world is all aflutter.

And it's very likely the Cybertruck will be vexed by the same issues the Citroen had in the first few years. They sold so many in 1955 that it took a few years to catch up with deliveries. There were manufacturing problems and the dealer network had no idea how to fix or maintain them.

But you have to admire the sheer pluck of both Citroen and Tesla to look at what everyone else is doing and not do that.

I've been driving my Citroen almost daily for years because of just that. I admired Andre Citroen for his guts. For him and his company, it was much more important to do a great thing than just to make a profit. They changed car design forever and rarely get credit for it, and while I find Elon Musk pretty damned irritating, he and his crew have done the same thing.

Having spent my life in advertising and helped countless companies rethink their brand, I've grown to admire clients with this kind of guts.

And I really do hate the name Cybertruck. Years back, I was working with what could have been the very first free website guide for a city. They wanted to call it AustinCyberLimits.com and might have done it had the lawyers from Austin City Limits not given them grief. I ended up naming it Austin360.com . You're welcome.

That said, I do wish the Cybertruck much luck, but really, I'd still rather drive my ancient DS. #cybertruck #citroen #advertising #brand #tesla

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