I’m sure most of you have heard of the party game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” The actor, in an interview some years ago, claimed to have worked with everyone in Hollywood, or with someone who had worked with them. Three college students turned the braggadocio’s remark into the game where players try and link different people (or things, I guess) to each other in six steps or less.

2008 Rendezvous

This all came to me as I was driving to Saratoga Springs the Saturday before Father’s Day to attend “2008 Rendezvous,” the annual meet of the Citroën Club of North America, held in the beautiful Saratoga Spa State Park just on the edge of town. On the way there I was listening to the NPR show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! which included a segment with former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, called “You’re a Diminutive, Gay, Alcoholic Genius and Gossip Addict,” about the famed gossip, writer Truman Capote. (Are you following this?) One of the questions McClellan had to answer concerned a game Capote used to play with his friends which he called “IBC” (International Baby Chain), where players would take two different people and somehow link them together through their sexual partners. (Capote once claimed to link crooner Cab Calloway to Adolph Hitler in three bedmates!)

And therein lies the link. Two columns ago I mentioned the car which runs on compressed air, which may or may not soon be in production in France. This past weekend I was at a French car show. Amazing!

First let me say that if you’re a fan of old cars, and, like me can neither afford to buy one nor have the mechanical knowledge to keep one running, then going to a show like this is the next best thing. You certainly don’t have to drive all the way to Saratoga Springs; I did that as this was a national meet of mostly strange-looking French cars for which I have a strong attraction, and you’re probably never going to see this many of them all in one place without going to France—which I also can’t afford. It’s amazing the time (and money) that some of these people obviously put into their cars. Many, though they were 30 or 40 years old (or more) were in much better shape than the 2001 Hyundai which got me there.

The Citroën, for those of you unfamiliar with the marque, really came into its own in the 1950s with the introduction of the DS. It looked like something from the future, and was packed with features no other manufacturer had even dreamt of, never mind put into production. As you can see from the photo, the DS almost looks like something you’d find on sale now—50 years after its introduction. The pictured car, from this year’s meet, was a beautiful shade of forest green, its roof the lightest of green, while the interior was a wonderful brown leather. Look closely at the photo of the steering wheel of another DS—note its single spoke! It always looked to me like it was sticking its tongue out—“Stupide Americain! Hah!”

Citroën is still in business, although they haven’t imported anything to North America in years (their sales were abysmal and their dealer network miniscule). It seemed for a while that they’d lost their uniqueness, but in the past couple of years they’ve once more come out with some interesting cars—most notably the C6 which has become the car to be seen in in France.

Would I ever buy a Citroën? I suppose if I ever found myself living in the French countryside, I just might. One in two-tone green. With the tongue-like steering wheel. Une belle voiture!