| Seen in the UK for the first time at the London Motor show, the C6 takes Citroën into the premium car market and is priced accordingly. Representing something of a left field choice amongst the established marques, the company is quite open about expected sales in the hundreds, not thousands.
In their own words, they are not specialist in the high line market and could not therefore offer the classic solution – the three box saloon.
Mark Lloyd, Citroën design team manager, said: “We must offer visual differentiation; not just in terms of detail or gimmick but of proportion. And there are rules: elegance, visual length, purity, stability, proportion. These rules must not be broken.”
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| C6 shares PSA platform 3 with Peugeot 407 |
The C6 is completely different in appearance to the Peugeot 407 even though they are built on a common platform. Lloyd does not see the sharing of platforms as a design constraint, and makes the point that perhaps in the past the car would have been built regardless, but not today; the production volumes are too low and the platform is needed to make the car economically viable. Lloyd said: “Platform sharing is part of the deal for everyone. You can produce extremely different products on a platform: the C4 and 307 are other examples of this.” True, but visually there is little to distinguish the C1/107/Aygo models. Lloyd said this example was not comparable: “That project went beyond platform sharing, it’s a different market and there was also the involvement of third partner Toyota.”
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| C4 and 407 also built on shared platform |
Joint ventures, alliances and partnerships are commonplace and Lloyd believes this will continue in the future. Using the collaboration between PSA and Fiat on their last MPV model as an example, Lloyd said: “We do believe in co-operation on specific segments. Not all of them, but where you either need a lot of volume or when volumes are not that enormous, it makes sense to share development costs with another company.”
This does not mean that the defining qualities of any brand need become diluted or distorted. Lloyd said: “Citroën has a strong heritage and a strong image: we have to respect that. It is very important that we have a Citroën style, but it’s something that evolves at a very rapid rate.”
“Each product should stand alone and each product has a style which is associated with that product. It’s a tricky approach because you constantly have to question what you’re doing: the next thing is never like the last thing. But there are certain threads that link them together: they must be perceived as Citroëns – slightly different from the others.”
That difference must be carefully managed: be a little too special and there is a risk of polarising opinion and perhaps alienating potential customers. “A major part of our workload is to fulfil the needs of the majority of people.” said Lloyd. “The major segments are not tending to disappear; each time a new kind of product is born, it doesn’t mean others disappear. The death of the sedan has been predicted for many, many years but it’s still there and I think it’ll be there for a long time to come.”
Legislation such as requirements for pedestrian impact inevitably affects the way cars are designed, but stylists and designers see these as challenges. The pyrotechnic bonnet of the C6 is one solution to the issue, although one which may not be viable for some market segments. “Much of this legislation has been coming for a long time. A new chunk comes in and we adapt.” said Lloyd. “Each time those rules change, it’s up to us to try and answer those changes in a more intelligent way than our competitors.”
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