Citroën is planning to launching a B-segment SUV into Europe, according to the firm’s C Line Chief Pierre Monferrini.
The company's partner, Peugeot, competes in the fast-growing segment in Europe with the Peugeot 2008 and Monferrini said it was a segment Citroën was looking at entering.“The B-SUV is of course a good question for us,” he said. “We have something in there with the C3 Picasso for the moment, but we will see what we do.”
He also confirmed that the DS Wild Rubis SUV concept revealed at the Shanghai motor show earlier this year would make it into production in 2014, but a decision on whether or not it would be sold in Europe had yet to be taken.
Monferrini also confirmed the C6 would not be replaced, as that car “should now be a DS”. A large DS saloon-come-hatchback was being evaluated , inspired by the Numero 9 concept from last year. “We said Numero 9 was the face of a future Citroën DS, but the body is still being evaluated further,” he said.
Monferrini was more optimistic on the C5, the model being set to be replaced, despite underwhelming sales in its current generation. It’s likely any future C5 replacement would be part of Citroen’s Cactus line-up.
The C1 has also now been confirmed for another generation, although “no Cactus will make it into the car” according to Monferrini as it’s been developed with a partner, Toyota.
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SUV's, great cars, and just
SUV's, great cars, and just what is needed, more competition to keep pricing competitive, Citroen do need to have one of these in the range, because there are people that wont touch Peugeot, it's past history of poor reliability and even more dodgy electrics has done it no favours.
The SUV is far better than a usual saloon or hatchback, as it has better vision, better access, generally more room, better boot space and access, also the ones i have seen are better equipped too.
It matters not whether we are being pushed or not, if they were not selling then the manufacturers would not continue to design and build them, so far from being pushed, like all things motoring, it is customer led.
After borrowing a friends
After borrowing a friends Picasso, I get the SUV thing.
Put it simply, easy access due to high driving position and a 'safer' feeling on the road.
Pain in the arse to park and on narrow streets though
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The SUV bandwagon is where the money's at. Whether you're into SUVs or not isn't the issue, car companies need a slice of the only part of the market that's really going anywhere so why wouldn't they develop a product to exploit that?
Fit for puprpose.......?
So, when did we suddenly need SUV's in our everyday busy lives?,most of us live in Towns,Village's, Cities,where do we need them there?,why not develope cars more for us Townies?.............