DS Automobiles
This week marks the Paris Motor Show, where automakers have been unveiling their best concepts to appease and delight the couture-focused French. France's own DS Automobiles isn't one to miss out on the party, so it showed up with a truly gorgeous hatchback: The F3VER concept, which has the Jalop staff as hot under the collar as its name would suggest.
Most of the press release accompanying the F3VER is some truly weapons-grade marketing drivel, with phrases like "uncompromising" and "unprecedented" used so frequently as to become meaningless, but that's a cost I'm willing to pay for a car this pretty. The wild lighting design both front and rear, the ridge running through the hood that's mirrored all the way back on the rear bumper, the gorgeous multi-tone paint and blue-tinged windows that play off the warm, titanium-hued accents on the roof, bumpers, side skirts, and wheels — the F3VER is truly hot enough to earn its name.
Isn't she lovely?
DS Automobiles
The best part of the F3VER is its paint. I'm a sucker for a good blue hue, always have been, and the F3VER concept has just the right balance of dark shades, light hues, and purple flake. It's a truly stunning color, and I hope DS can bring it to market — or at least release a more production-friendly simulacrum, like Ford did with Liquid Blue. I struggle to believe the tail lights that "comprise 16 LED panels supported by an ultra-lightweight magnesium structure inspired by the vaulted roof of the Grand Palais" will ever show up on on dealer lots, but I have faith that all the power of the Stellantis paint shop can pull off this color.
DS Automobiles
Beyond the design, the F3VER concept is a relatively standard electric hatchback. DS brags about the car's "unprecedented proportions," but at 165 inches long, 72.4 inches wide, and 57.5 inches tall it's mean it's approximately the same size as a 208 GTI — not exactly a revolution in automotive engineering. Personally, though, I like that. Cars don't need to go off the wall in proving themselves unique, they can just make a few impactful design decisions really, really well.
DS Automobiles
This won't stay a concept for long. It serves as a replacement for the DS 3, which will be renamed DS N°3 to go along with the brand's silly naming scheme. The F3VER's design is a clear homage to the original two-door DS 3 that first launched as a Citroën before DS was spun off into its own brand; the second-gen DS 3 gained a second set of doors and became more of a crossover, but still looked funky as hell. Luckily, this new model is returning to its hatchback roots even though it'll stick with having four doors.