The Citroën DS3 is according to Wikipedia a "luxury supermini", a small car being produced by French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroën. It is being advertised with the slogan "anti retro" and a variety of advertisements promoting the idea that the car is a dramatic new innovation on a par with The Beatles or punk: the antithesis of the backward look. This assertion of novelty includes a TV ad with footage of John Lennon (who died 29 years before the car was launched) speaking of newness and modernity and destroying all that came before, and an online project in which bands such as Editors take a break from producing 1980s-influenced indie rock to nominate a selection of ground-breaking epochal tracks. Other bands participating include new wave-influence power-pop group Ash, aging stadium dance act Faithless, soundtrack favourites Zero 7, up-and-coming indie band Temper Trap, and traditionalist rockers Stereophonics.
There is nothing new in artistic movements rejecting the past: punk, Lettrism, Dada, Futurism, and many other movements did exactly this thing, whether by declaring a hatred of Pink Floyd or promising "We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind" (Futurist manifesto, 1909). But just as the Sex Pistols recycled Rolling Stones riffs and a long tradition of rock 'n' roll rebellion, the DS3 takes its name from one of the most iconic cars in Citroën's history, the DS, launched in 1955 and still coming very high in polls of the most beautiful and well-designed cars of all time. The DS3 costs from GBP 11 700 in the UK, looking brutal and bottom-heavy with bulky squarish front, low sides, big air intakes, and streamlined top. According to Autocar it is intended to compete with another design classic, the BMW-owned Mini: perhaps the DS3's rejection of the past has one particular legend in mind.
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