The Citroen DS range will grow to encompass six different models, including a luxury flagship for China and, potentially, a chic city car to rival the Fiat 500. The Metropolis concept, revealed at last year’s Shanghai Expo, is likely to form the basis of a range-topping DS model, according to product planning chief Thomas d’Haussy.
He also revealed to Autocar that a DS concept could be applied to a city car because the success of the Fiat 500 proved that there was huge demand for such highly customisable compact models.
Should Citroën push the button on a ‘DS1’, it would be based on the new Citroën C1. That car, along with its Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo siblings, is due to be revealed at the Paris motor show in autumn 2012.
China, in particular, presented an excellent opportunity for extending the DS range, according to d’Haussy, and the market there would get all six of the planned DS models, including the current DS3, DS4 and DS5 range.
Not all will make it to Europe, d’Haussy said, because big luxury French cars, a category the range-topping DS model would fit into, have not been commercially successful. Another potential development in the DS range includes the DS4 getting the DS5’s diesel-electric hybrid all-wheel-drive powertrain. “More development with Hybrid4 is planned,” d’Haussy said.
Citroën will also be harnessing its Citroën Racing performance division in the future after the DS3 Racing project, according to d’Haussy. “DS3 Racing wasn’t a one-off project,” he said. “We could have sold more than the 2300 we have done.”
Mark Tisshaw
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