Citroën metropolis concept car (2010)

Frankly, the last true Citroën (and I know this is going to sound a bit snooty) was the Xantia Activa. The C6 was supposed to truly harken back to the Citroën of old, but it fell short on so many levels: only hydro-pneumatic suspension (brakes and steering were conventional), too little leg room in the back, no frontier engineering, etc.

While the Xantia itself wasn't any particular standout in Citroën's history, its Activa variant felt like the Citroën engineers had finally broken through the Peugeot penny-pinchers. At least one last time. Citroën used to be about pushing unconventional engineering (like front-wheel drive (Traction-Avant), unibody (ditto), hydro-pneumatic suspension (DS), self-adjusting headlights (SM), active self-adjusting steering (CX), anti-roll (Activa)); the Metropolis - by contrast - just seems like a styling exercise with some conventional (though uncommon at the time) engineering.

Citroën used to push the frontiers of car manufacturing, but haven't done that since the 1990s.

Disclaimer: I own two classic Citroëns, so I'm likely a bit biased.

	▲	Akasazh 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah it's gotten really bad at Citroën, they split of their brand with the DS brand, which was supposed to be the cutting edge design brand, but it's rather generic design with a logo nobody recognizes. Speaking of logos, the new Citroën logo itself is very ugly. It's bad when a budget brand, Dacia, is going more inventive stuff, like designing a slide in bed system and attachable tent for their station wagon.

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JSR_FDED 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unbelievable that design-wise this 16 yo model would be one of the top ten best looking cars on the road today.

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cheschire 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Looks like a pretty standard sedan from any company from that era to me, just with a Citroen grill and fancy rims.

Put that grill on a BMW 6 series from that time, looks about the same.

	▲	embedding-shape an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Unbelievably unimaginable compared to the sedans on the road today, I see those types of cars everywhere? Not sure what's supposed to be the "concept" besides the "gills" or whatever it's called.

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dvh 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It wouldn't. Compare Chevrolet volt concept car with actual Chevrolet volt car.

	▲	sigmoid10 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That car was a clusterfuck from beginning to end. They rather wanted it to compete with the Prius after the initial design phase. They just ended up making the same car but worse and twice as expensive. Not surprising that they pulled the plug eventually.

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hyperionultra 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Citroen and in general French concept designs was always on top of the line. Citroen GT!

	▲	alex_duf 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not sure about that, the mid 90 to early 2000s have been really poorly looking in my opinion
	▲	drcongo 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The Citroen SM, which was essentially a concept that made it into production, is probably my favourite car design of all time.

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drooopy 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I miss the crazy, unconventional Citroën of yore.

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maelito 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Citroën missed the transition to electric. They're getting crushed by Renault.

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mawadev 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Probably, but they still manage to sell their cars just fine. The french econoboxes are just really affordable, even the e cars

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bdavbdav an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Stelantis are defocusing Citroen.

	▲	drooopy 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The amount of overlap in Stelantis’ lineup is completely absurd. I can’t understand how anyone thought it was a good idea to develop seven or eight models in the same segment (this repeating across all segments) that all end up competing and cannibalizing each other. At this rate, they’re going to sacrifice a lot of legendary car brands just to stay afloat.

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fock 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

are they? It's all the same company with the brand today just used for appealing to localized government funding (because we can just shutter that factory you have there!). In the small marketshare electric future these multiple brands will be useful to kill one by one without tarnishing the remaining brands too much.

	▲	antonkochubey 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Renault is not a part of Stellantis.
	▲	otherme123 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You might be confusing Renault with Peugeot, that is indeed Citroën with a lion (or is Citröen a Peugeot with two angles?). Anyways, Renault is actually half-merged with Nissan and Mitsubishi.

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Gabrys1 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Looks like Mazda 6 to me