If you thought the Citroën C2 was pint sized, wait until its city car sibling, the C1, is unveiled next year. The C1, its PSA cousin Peugeot 1007 and the Toyota Aygo will be built off the same platform.
If you thought the Citroën C2 was pint sized, wait until its city car sibling, the C1, is unveiled next year. The C1, its PSA cousin Peugeot 1007 and Toyota Aygo will be built off the same platform.
CARtoday.com reported in August that the South Africa-bound 1007, a spunky little urban car fitted with two remote-controlled electric sliding doors and interchangeable interior trim colours (click here to read more about the little Pug) shone alongside the 907 concept on Peugeot’s stand at the Paris Motor Show.
The C1, 1007 (or perhaps 107, if that is what Peugeot decides to call the production version) and Aygo are a joint venture and will launch simultaneously at the Geneva Motor Show next March.
Citroën will offer its new Stop & Start technology on the C1, although it won’t be part of its standard specification, PSA Peugeot-Citroën’s innovation and quality boss, Robert Peugeot, was quoted as saying recently.
The system, which will also be fitted to the C3, cuts the engine when the car is at a standstill, with a reversible alternator replacing the regular starter motor. According to a report, when fitted to a C3, Stop & Start technology could cut urban fuel consumption by 27 per cent.
Stop & Start will at first be only available with petrol engines and the Sensodrive transmission, but PSA will probably extend it to cover both manual ’boxes and diesels.
DaimlerChrysler has taken an interest in PSA’s city car projects, and according to German newspaper the German-US multinational is considering a joint project for the Smart and Peugeot brands to co-develop new two- and four-seater city cars.
According to a report, DaimlerChrysler intends to scale down its collaboration with Mitsubishi, whose new Colt light car shares its platform with the Smart Forfour (which was recently launched in South Africa) and both models are built at the Mitsubishi factory in the Netherlands.
In a bid to reduce development and production costs of Smart products, Peugeot could offer DaimlerChrysler a more stable long-term partnership than financially-troubled Mitsubishi, the report said.