Mike Cottingham, the Present Owner writes:

"The car started its life back in 1974 when the chassis, engine and gearbox were produced and registered with the Dutch authorities, giving it a Dutch identity.

In the late seventies a Dutch Citroën dealer decided that he would like to build three top of the range Citroën DS’s and began to collect all the parts he needed to assemble the cars. The models he chose where a DS Prestige, DS Convertible and a DS 23 Pallas IE.

The Prestige and convertible were duly assembled and are on the road today. The DS 23 Pallas IE however was never built and remained just a pile of new parts gathering dust. The car changed hands several times in the coming years and one owner did start assembling the car but abandoned it shortly after.

Early in 2008 on my travels looking for my perfect car I got to hear about this project car. I did not know if it was just myths or indeed it did exist. I contacted Citroen Andre & Partners in March 2008 and they tracked down the car for me. I went over to Holland in May 2008 to view the car and was taken to a barn to look at a pile of new parts hanging onto a DS chassis with tape and gravity.

I had a dream for my retirement of owning the best DS I could afford having drove around many Citroëns in the 60’s & 70’s that were falling apart around me so I decided with André Pol’s help to purchase the car and commission them to complete the car for me, to as close as possible to showroom condition.

Many parts were missing and throughout 2008, 2009 and 2010 André had to source the parts from all over the world to fulfill my dream, with parts coming from USA, Kuwait, South Africa, France, Italy, Sweden, Poland and Germany.

Work started on the car in late 2009 and was completed in July 2010 and brought to the UK.

The car would never have been built to such a high standard if it was not for the team at Citroen Andre & Partners. My many thanks go to André Pol, Bart Knocken (who assembled the car) & Wils Nieuwhof.