Reborn Citroën 2CV part of plan for 'daring and shocking' models

Citroën will leverage the history and heritage of the brand – and the 2CV in particular – with future models, boss Thierry Koskas has confirmed.

Autocar revealed earlier this year that design work on a model inspired by the original 2CV had begun.

Asked if Citroën made enough of its history, Koskas said the brand has "one of the richest histories in the world" and in France the original Citroën DS and Citroën 2CV are always named as one and two when people are asked for their favourite cars from history.

"The brand has an incredible history and I think it still appeals to a lot of people," said Koskas. "When you travel everywhere in the world, people know the 2CV.

"We want to use this heritage. We will do it in a way that we will see [in the future]. But yes, we want to leverage that."

Koskas said the future Citroën range will be built around four pillars: the C3, C3 Aircross, C4 and C5 Aircross. But the firm will launch additional models as part of a plan to be "daring and shocking".

"There are different ways to express that, through our products and how we communicate," he said. "We have started to be daring again in how we communicate.

"But in the future, we need some iconic models that will surprise, either through their design, their features, or whatever.

"This is very much what Citroën knows how to do, and I think that we really need to do that again as it will have a halo effect on the other models. We need the four pillars for the volume and growth of the brand, but we also need some icons."

Koskas confirmed that the brand will continue to make physical concept cars to showcase proposed new models and ideas, and later this year there will be a "new concept that will give direction on how we understand the notion of comfort and space management".

While this is understood to not directly preview a new model, including a reborn 2CV, Koskas said Citroën "needs to move to series cars" for creating new concepts and ideas as "we do not want to have icons only in concepts that nobody will buy. We want to have real icons that customers will buy".

After the imminent introduction of the new C3 and C3 Aircross models and a facelift for the C4, the C5 Aircross will be launched later this year as the last of Citroën's four pillar models.

Koskas said this will be the ceiling for the brand in terms of the size of cars it offers. There is also still no plan for Citroën to re-enter the city car segment with a C1 or C2 model due to "very challenging" issues about making such cars affordable. But Koskas believes Citroën "already addresses the smaller car segment" with the affordability of its new C3.