The DS SM Tribute managed from the very beginning to capture the attention of all car enthusiasts with an homage to the legendary SM. Beyond the great admiration for this concept, the question on everyone’s mind was whether this car would really ever come off the production lines. Several speculations were made in a few days, so let’s see what turned out to be the reality of the facts.
The first rumors about the concept
As we know, the car in question was unveiled at the Chantilly Arts & Elegance last September 15. The DS SM Tribute was designed to be initially a concept car produced by French homebuilder Stellantis of great importance to celebrate DS Automobiles’ 10 years of existence. The celebration chosen by the design team led by Thierry Metroz was to pay homage to the 1970 SM, offering the public a certainly high-quality concept that has returned to the public for discussion just these days.
From the very beginning, what had been perceived by everyone was that the DS SM Tribute would be created merely as a decidedly unique concept car, but with no intention of being able to represent a production model under the DS Automobiles house brand in the future. Despite this, subsequent to its unveiling, some statements by DS Automobiles style director Thierry Metroz, which had been made to Top Gear, had passed to the ear the possibility that the car could be introduced into the range as a limited series variant of the SM Tribute that had precisely been seen at the Chantilly Arts & Elegance.
Denied possibility of producing DS SM Concept
If we were to better organize Metroz’s spoken words, we can understand that he never stated with certainty that there was a possibility of taking the concept toward actual production. Rather, the need had emerged for the DS SM Tribute to be a style manifesto for the brand and for the French manufacturer’s future range, with features that would then be able to work on a full range of vehicles. However, this would have been a condition that in DS Automobiles it seems they managed to find by concentrating the focus right from the SM Tribute concept. Just think, for example, that the head of styling at DS Automobiles on another occasion had admitted that “the two-tone hood treatment is ready for production and we will see it on the next DS-branded model.”
Anyway, after all this speculation, the news has been finally denied by the Italian section of Motor1. In fact, journalists from the publication thought to get in touch with DS Automobiles with the intention of extrapolating more detailed information. The answer, however, turned out to be immediately negative as the DS manufacturer seems to have no intention of getting a production DS SM Tribute on the production line, not even in a limited edition production run. As we mentioned earlier, we could probably only find styling details seen on the SM Tribute will be carried over to the next series-produced DS.