Black Talbot DS from 1925 with four cylinders (2116 cc). Max speed: 100 km/h
DS Automobiles is a French luxury-premium vehicle marque of Automobiles Citroën S.A., a subsidiary ultimately owned by Stellantis. The independent DS marque was created in 2014 from the former DS subbrand and line of models of Citroën cars made since 2009, although had been separated from Citroën in Asia since 2012.
DS can be an abbreviation of Different Spirit or Distinctive Series, although it is also considered a nod to the classic executive car Citroën DS. The name is also a play on words, as in French it is pronounced like the word déesse, meaning “goddess”.
Talbot is a dormant automobile marque introduced in 1902 by British-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément-Talbot business during the First World War.
Soon after the end of the war, Clément-Talbot was brought into a combine named STD Motors. Shortly afterward, STD Motors’ French products were renamed Talbot instead of Darracq.
In the mid-1930s, with the collapse of STD Motors, Rootes bought the London Talbot factory and Antonio Lago bought the Paris Talbot factory, Lago producing vehicles under the marques Talbot and Talbot-Lago. Rootes renamed Clément-Talbot Sunbeam-Talbot in 1938, and stopped using the brand name Talbot in the mid-1950s. The Paris factory closed a few years later.
Ownership of the marque – which through a convoluted series of takeovers saw it exist in two different forms by both the Rootes Group and Simca – and with both these companies coming under the ownership of Chrysler Corporation in the 1960s, it eventually fell into the ownership of PSA Peugeot Citroën after it acquired the ailing Chrysler Europe from its American parent in 1978. PSA revived the use of the Talbot marque from 1979 until 1994.
The rights to the Talbot marque are presently owned by Groupe PSA’s successor, Stellantis.
