Autoblog

Following the approach taken by rival Renault, PSA/Peugeot-Citroen is working on an entry-level car set to debut in emerging markets in 2011. The Renault Logan has done well in Russia and Romania, which has prodded this interest and action from PSA. The new five-passenger vehicle will be assembled in Turkey or Poland and sold in eastern and central Europe, Russia, Turkey, and North Africa wearing both Citroen and Peugeot badging. If successful, sales would also expand to include China and South America. Even if the vehicle sells well, PSA/Peugeot-Citroen CEO Christian Streiff maintains there are no plans to sell the new car in western Europe – regardless of Renault's strategy.

[Source: Automotive News, subs. req'd]

One of Citroen's big debuts at the Paris Motor Show was its HYmotion4 hybrid technology, which was fitted to the Citroën Hypnos and C4 WRC along with the Peugeot RC and Prologue. Unlike most hybrid systems, the French technology has no direct connection between the car's engine and battery, so the pack is recharged "through the road" when the car's regenerative braking is applied. There's a 125-kW electric motor attached to the rear axle that gets its power from 990 individual lithium ion cells wired up to produce 400-volts. The C4 WRC's driver can select from a number of modes to allow a specific amount of electric assistance, including running solely on the electric motor or using it as a short-term boost for added acceleration. This way, the car can be run in zero-emission mode or at full power, depending on the situation. Although no production machines have been announced with this new technology, the fact that the automaker has created four separate concepts with it shows that it is serious about its production possibilities.


[Sources: Citroen, World Rally Championship]

It may look more than a bit, um, quirky, but so did the iconic 2CV that the C-Cactus concept was meant to embody. Built to do more with less -- materials that is -- the Citroen C-Cactus concept that was shown last year at the Geneva Motor Show used innovative construction techniques to cut the number of components required to manufacture it in half and is what Citroen calls an essentialist vehicle. A production version would attempt to follow that same pattern and could be powered by a version of the French automaker's new HYmotion2 hybrid system, consisting of a 1.0-liter diesel coupled to an electric motor. The powertrain could return over 100 miles per gallon according to the automaker. Another possibility would be to go full electric with the goal of achieving a 100 mile range and a 70 mile per hour top speed. Just how much of the concept's radical look would be carried over remains to be seen, though being Citroen, we're sure it would be suitably radical no matter what.


[Source: Citroen, AutoblogGreen]

Click either image for a high-res gallery of the Citroen Hypnos concept

Someone over at Citroen has been hitting the absinthe. Well, why not, because Citroen is celebrating its birthday and had the semi-annual Paris auto salon in town to coincide. We'd say they should have stuck with the champagne, but we kinda like this car. Called the Hypnos, it's all business on the outside, and all trippy on the inside.

The exterior looks something like a darker, more versatile version of the GT concept developed by the same company. The interior is something else altogether, and is likely to seem familiar only to those who have gone diving in coral reefs or spent some time in Amsterdam. (If anyone's asking, we fall into the former.) Power is provided by the the HYmotion4 hybrid diesel powertrain PSA rolled out on several show cars, including sister-company Peugeot's Prologue and RC HYmotion4 concepts, which gives the Hypnos green credentials to go with the hippie-inspired design theme. Of course, this falls squarely in the design study category of concept cars (as opposed to the production preview sort), but if this is an indication of where Citroen is headed, overseas customers could be in for a wild ride. Follow the jump for the press release and check out the images in the gallery below.

There are a lot of big birthdays in the car industry this year, and the Citroen 2CV joins GM and Land Rover in the candle-blowing crowd. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the deux-say-vay, Hermes created a special version of a 1989 Citroen 2CV6 Special for the Paris Auto Show. If you saw the Bugatti Veryon by Hermes you know what to expect, with hand-stitched swathes of Hermes trademark gray-beige leather contrasted with white on the front and rear benches. Of course the Hermes treatment is worth as much as the car itself, but anything the 2CV lacks in luxury is more than made up for by character. Check out the press release after the jump and the gallery of high-res photos below.

Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is about to get a pretty substantial upgrade. The next time you boot up your Playstation 3, an update will be available for GT5 that will add the GT by Citroen, Ferrari's new California and the Lotus Evora. Lotus fans got a sneak peek into the Evora's GT5 inclusion at the British Motor Show a few weeks back, and now everybody gets to join in on the aluminum-intensive fun. It's always a pleasure to strap yourself in a Ferrari, in real-life or virtually, and the California is the latest Italian Stallion around, so its addition was a foregone conclusion. The biggest news, though, is the new French GT, which its maker says was "a partnership between Citroën and Polyphony." In the game-realm, the new GT concept will be powered by electrons generated from a hydrogen fuel cell. Even if the technology isn't quite ready for prime time in your driveway, it can always make waves in digital form, running around various race tracks while emitting nothing but water.


[Source: PlayStation Blog via Joystiq]

The day is here, the GTbyCitroen has got over its shyness and is ready to be seen by the world. Par for the French, the GT is funky -- and we're not even going to get into the seventh teaser for the car in which the car was completely covered. Contrary to the rakishness of its looks, it's also fairly slow. The 3,000-pound two-seater takes a virtual 3.6 seconds to get to a virtual 62 mph, and that's with a 646 digital ponies boosted by an additional 136 hydrogen-powered horses. As for the design, if you're wondering what that rear overhang is about, the phrase you're looking for is "retinal persistence." Yeah. You can find more explanations like that and a whole lot more in the press release after the jump, and the gallery of high-res photos below.

In a move more "Um, yeah..." than "Oh yeah!", Citroen has released the sixth teaser image of the car that will, one of these days, be revealed entirely to the world, all at once, front and back. We aren't even sure if this qualifies as a tease, since getting a glimpse at a front end we've already seen doesn't really ring the bell. What we can say is that one of our commenters appears to be right: the car does look like it's only 10 inches high. Relive the magic of the slowest reveal ever in the gallery of high-res photos below.


[Source: 4 Wheels News]

Citroen has let slip another drip in the GT by Citroen reveal, and this time it's a video showing off the dramatic shapes of "The Drive of Your Life." Dig those mirrors, and the glasshouse swept back in monumental fashion. Whatever is pushing the car's massive rims apparently needs a lot of air, with two raked scoops behind the canopy and two more on the sides ahead of the rear wheels. And the rear end of the car looks like -- dare we say it -- a tail... It's Mach 5 if the car comes together like we expect, or platypus if it doesn't. The Paris Motor Show reveal is in but a few days, and you can mark us down as officially excited. Check out the video after the jump and more teaser pics in the gallery below. Thanks for the tip, Nick!


[Source: Gran Turismo]

It's time for your next dose of the GT by Citroen concept. To the commenter who wrote that the front of the car looks like a catfish -- well, in a victory for symmetry, the back of the car looks like a catfish, too, and a couple of other gilled sea creatures. No matter its fishy similarities, it also look like it will be a lot of fun to throw this baby around Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The tease can't go on much longer -- the Paris Motor Show begins in a week. We'll be there with cameras and bait, just in case.


[Source: Zer Customs]