Peugeot looks to sporty core models, leaving RCZ's future uncertain

PSA boss Carlos Tavares has refused to confirm that Peugeot will replace the Audi TT-rivalling RCZ. 

"It still has a couple of years to go," he said "and we are going to concentrate on making sporty derivatives of mainstream models." That means projects such as the forthcoming 308 R will be given priority.

He also ruled out the chances of Peugeot returning to making other more exotic sports cars, despite the company previewing such models with a variety of recent concept cars, including last year’s Exalt.

Since joining the company at the end of last year Tavares has been on a mission to reduce the numbers of models sold by Citroën, DS and Peugeot and the complexity of platforms. His aim is to reduce global models from 45 to 26, built on just two platforms, raising the possibility that the RCZ replacement maybe a victim of this cull. 

Tavares did confirm however that the company was pressing on with other technologies. "An EV is a few years away but they’re only useful as commuter cars. We really want to do petrol plug-in hybrids for family cars and long-distance journeys."

However, he also revealed that the radical Hybrid Air technology previewed by both Citroën and Peugeot "has no business case at the moment as we need to share it with another car maker."

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