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A French-market 1972 Citroën DS21 IE Confort is live on Bring a Trailer, with no bids yet and the auction closing Thursday, November 5, at 2:00 p.m. ET. It is not listed as a no-reserve sale, and the car is in France. The reason to click is the nose: the inboard headlights swing left and right with the steering wheel, a trick Citroën was selling in 1968 and one the American market was not allowed to have.
How the Steering Headlights Worked
The DS got its four-lamp face in the late-1967 restyle that carried over into the 1968 model year. Behind that sweep of glass, the inboard lamps are the long-range driving beams, and they are tied to the steering gear by cables and levers. Turn the wheel and those lamps pivot toward the corner before the car has finished getting there. There are no motors, sensors, or computers involved. The Citroën Car Club notes that only the driving lights steered while the dipped beams stayed put, and that the original system could swing as far as 80 degrees, compared with 15 degrees on a later Citroën design. The outer low beams were not idle either, since they self-level to compensate for pitch under braking and acceleration.
The idea was not new. Tucker patented a steerable center lamp in 1947 for the Tucker 48, the "Cyclops Eye," but only 51 cars were built before the company folded. Citroën, working from a design credited to engineer Edmond Henry-Biabaud and a 1965 patent, was the first to put the concept into mass production. The flagship SM picked it up in 1970.
Why Citroën Built It
It fits the car. The DS already ran its suspension, steering, and brakes off a single high-pressure hydraulic system, and its self-leveling ride kept the headlights pointed at the road instead of the sky. Making the lights follow the steering was the same thinking applied to night driving on narrow French roads. We covered another product of that mindset recently, the clutchless hydraulic gearbox on a 1970 Chapron convertible. Per the Citroën Car Club, the directional lights were offered on higher-specification DS models from 1967, so they were a step up rather than a given on every car.
The lineage of clever lighting hardware runs through other forgotten factory ideas too, like the Autronic Eye that dimmed the headlights on a 1957 Oldsmobile Starfire 98.
Why It Disappeared, and Why America Never Got It
American rules of the era barred swiveling lamps and the glass-covered nose, so US-market DS sedans got four exposed, fixed headlights instead. Canada accepted the European lamps. Without a US market to amortize the cost, and with cables and linkages that need to be adjusted and eventually wear, the mechanical system had little chance of becoming a mass-market fixture. Today cornering lights do the job electronically, either by switching on a side lamp when you turn or by moving the beam with a motor.
There is a neat bookend to the story. When NHTSA finally amended FMVSS 108 to allow adaptive driving beam headlights, Motor1 reported that it was undoing a restriction that traces back to a 1967 federal standard, the same year Citroën was putting its steering headlights into production. Adaptive beams are a different technology from steering lamps, but the arc is the same: European lighting ideas arrived on American roads decades late.
The Car and the Fine Print
This DS21 IE Confort left the factory in Beige Albatros over gold cloth and was sold new on June 2, 1972, through Citroën Pichard of Tours, according to the listing. A third owner repainted it white in 1976, and it was returned to its original color in the 2000s, according to the seller. Corrosion around the body was treated in 2026. The listing shows 4,500 kilometers, roughly 2,800 miles, so ask the seller whether that figure is original and how it is documented.
Power comes from a fuel-injected 2.2-liter four paired with a five-speed manual, an option Citroën added to the lineup in September 1970. The hydropneumatic suspension runs "Supplément Confort" spheres, the front discs are inboard, and the brake is the floor-mounted mushroom button. A programmable 123ignition electronic ignition has been added, and the cylinder head was rebuilt during a mechanical refurbishment by the seller's son.
The directional headlights appear in the listing's equipment list as "Euro-Market Directional Headlights," and the description says the car has quad enclosed headlights with directional high beams. The sale includes a June 1972 invoice, registration records, parts invoices from the refurbishment, and French registration in the seller's name. That invoice is the place to confirm the original specification, and a short video of the lamps tracking the steering would show whether the cables and linkage still do their job.
The car is in France, so the buyer arranges shipping and import. A 1972 car sits well inside the 25-year window explained in our import rule primer, though state lighting and registration rules vary, so check yours first. As always on BaT, read the comments before bidding.
Would you pay extra for headlights that steer with the wheel, or is this one of those ideas better left to history?
