Automotive Engineer

Compact segment vehicles account for a third of Europe’s market volume.

Competition is intense, with the VW Golf, Ford Focus, Toyota Auris and Opel Astra, among others, fighting for a proportion of the market.

The segment is also important to Citroën. Its second-generation C4 may not hold the largest share of the market compared to some of its competitors but as people downsize their vehicles it forms an important part of the company’s fleet.

To compete successfully, Citroën’s engineers have had to bring to the car technologies more usually associated with higher segment vehicles while at the same time lowering emissions.

Jean-Michel Marmiesse, the C4’s project director, says: “We have to keep customers of the previous generation C4 and gain new ones, above all in the fleet market. To do that we have to offer unique features, helpful and intuitive innovations, and more luggage space and room in the cabin.”

The development programme lasted three years and involved engineers from PSA’s research and development facilities in Vélizy near Paris and Sochaux in the east of France. The C4 uses a stretched version of PSA’s BVH2 platform, which it shares with the Peugeot 308. The new C4 has grown in length by 54mm compared to the first-generation vehicle, to 4,329mm.

That means that Marmiesse’s target of increasing luggage space has been met – and by a considerable margin – with 408 litres of room compared to 320 litres in the previous vehicle.

But the C4’s growth has also meant that the vehicle has gained weight – it now weighs from 1,370kg for the 1.6-litre gasoline version and 1,388kg for the 1.6-litre diesel. The first-generation vehicle weighed from 1,200kg.

Much of that weight is due to demands from consumers for comfort features. Systems such as blind-spot warning, a parking space measurement system and hill-start assist have migrated from larger vehicles. But the C4 also offers massage seats for the driver and passenger, and a large panoramic roof as options.