No idea what this is about or why it was made, but there are a few pretty good stunts involving Citroen 2CVs with some crafty "nuns" behind the wheel. Those kooky Frenchies.
WRC.com reported this morning that 2007 Formula World Champion Kimi Raikkonen will drive a Citroen C4 WRC for the Citroen junior team next season. The announcement comes as news that Fernando Alonso will join Ferrari in 2010 becomes official.
Bringing personal sponsor Red Bull with him, Raikkonen will join 25-year-old Sebastian Ogier on the junior squad.
Apparently winning the F1 driver's championship brings some clout because Raikkonen's rally experience is surprisingly limited in a sport where youth and enthusiasm is far less important that experience. He crashed out of Rally Finland last summer after running 15th overall in an S2000-class Fiat Abarth Grande Punto.
Petter Solberg, the 2003 World Rally Champion, will run next season in a C4 WRC under as his own team: The Petter Solberg World Rally Team. Solberg ran most of the 2009 season in a privately entered four-year-old Citroen Xsara WRC.
Mitsubishi has been struggling for years now, and a report out of Japan today from the Nikkei news service suggests that Mitsu is in the "final stages" of negotiating a deal with PSA, the alliance of the French automakers Peugeot and Citroen. PSA would take at least a 50-percent stake in Mitsubishi.
What's in it for these parties? Well, it's thought that Mitsubishi could really use cash and a partner with which to develop new models (the Lancer/Outlander family is its newest model line, remember, and that architecture dates back to Mitsu's defunct alliance with Chrysler).
Meanwhile, Peugeot-Citroen are said to be interested in Mitsubishi's work with electric cars (i.e., the i-MiEV) and SUVs (both companies already rebadge versions of the Outlander).
Although Mitsubishi is downplaying this report, it's expected that an announcement will come soon.
We've driven Sebastian Loeb's Citroen C4 WRC, and we rode shotgun while Loeb drove it. Now Petter Solberg offers his take on the C4 rally car. Stuck with an older Citroen Xsara for most of the 2009 season, the Subaru refugee has secured a factory-supported C4 to drive as a privateer in this weekend's Rally de Espana. Solberg will then drive it for Citroen's junior WRC team in Great Britain, the last race of the season.
"Compared to the Xsara, this car needs a more aggressive driving style and I need to learn where the limit is," Solbert said in an interview published on the WRC site. "That's why I did so many runs on the shakedown -- just to get more experience. I should have done much more testing before the rally, and also at home in the go-kart, but I just didn't have the time.
"I haven't driven on tarmac since Corsica last year, so of course it will take time to get into the full rhythm -- but it's coming. I hope to improve my speed throughout the whole weekend and see where we can be. Maybe somewhere in the top three -- I think it's possible."
More photos of the privateer WRC C4 after the jump, plus video of Solberg talking about what it's like to put together your own WRC team in two weeks.
This is a European-market commercial for Citroen, which is celebrating its 90th birthday in 2009. We're posting it here, because it's simply a nicely edited commercial with plenty of old, funny French cars, as well as topical stuff like Sebastian Loeb's C4 WRC car and the Citroen Gran Turismo. The soundtrack's good, too. Thanks to Bob Holland for the tip.
Citroen WRC driver Sebastian Loeb has confirmed he will drive a GP2 car in an official test session for the DPR team in Spain on October 8. There has been considerable speculation that Loeb would like to drive for Formula One, and this would be a step toward that goal. The Spain test is said to be a preparation for a more serious test on the Abu Dhabi circuit in early November.
A WRC press release reports that Loeb has modified his training regimen to be ready for open-wheel racing, apparently wearing a weighted helmet to strengthen his neck muscles.
We got a chance to drive Sebastian Loeb's Citroen C4 WRC car on a gravel rally stage next to the Paul Ricard Circuit in France. Though we suspect Loeb and his team of mechanics were none too eager to surrender the cockpit, we found the car surprisingly easy to drive quickly -- direct in its responses yet almost compliant over the potholes.
Then, Mr. Loeb took the wheel, and the man who was so stoic and reserved during our interview became positively chatty. At day's end, we realized we'd met the real Sebastien Loeb in his natural environment, doing what he was born to do.
Considering how many American autoworkers are losing their jobs this year, the reaction here has been comparatively mild. To our knowledge, no one has threatened to blow up a plant. But that's exactly what's going down in France right now.
All 316 workers at the partsmaker New Fabris will be losing their jobs after the factory closed June 16. New Fabris was a parts supplier to Renault and PSA (the Citroen-Peugeot alliance), and the workers are demanding 30,000 euros (almost $43,000) each in compensation from the automakers.
They've set a deadline of July 31, and workers are taking turns guarding cannisters of acetylene and butane once used to power tractors at the plant.
The Citroen C-Crosser Exclusive PSP Edition will be priced between 28,344 and 33,990 Euros, depending on which blog you want to believe. But our videogame fiend friends across the pond will have to spend more to feed the gaming addiction of backseat passengers.
Reports surfaced earlier this week that Citroen was planning a new line of near-luxury cars with the iconic DS nameplate
. Late yesterday the company released a bunch of photos of the Citroen DS Inside concept, which will be in its booth at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show
. The DS Inside is about the size of a Mini Cooper Clubman
and it's a prologue to the Citroen DS3 production car. Larger DS4 and DS5 models will follow.
We've gathered the photos of the Citroen DS Inside here and there's no denying it looks cool, provided you like the recent crop of short, squat hatchbacks (anything from the Mini family, Fiat 500, Kia Soul) and provided you like cars that look French. We're not sure about the contrasting roof, though, as it makes Citroen's cribbing from the Mini Cooper look a bit too obvious.
We covered the Citroen C-Cactus Concept
at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show
. We were taken by its amoeboid shape, its six-tentacle 21-inch wheels, its bathtub cockpit and the water lily cut-outs in its front seats.
"It would be powered by a diesel hybrid powertrain," Detroit Senior Editor Dan Pund wrote, "and many of the body panels would be biodegradable were it toever make it to production, which it won't. But if Woody Allen ever produces a remake of Sleeper this is the car he should use."
Now comes a report from Auto Express that the Citroen C-Cactus is going into production. And in addition to pairing a small-displacement diesel engine with an electric motor and battery pack, additional C-Cactus variants might use all electric or all gasoline motivation.
It was only a matter of time: Automotive News Europe
reported this week that Citroen will resurrect its iconic DS nameplate. Eventually, it will be a whole line of near-luxury models, but the entry-level car, the Citroen DS3, will debut at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show
and go on sale in the first half of 2010, according to AN.
Like the reborn Mini Cooper and Fiat 500, the new Citroen DS models will be positioned as upscale small (and, eventually, medium-size) cars, with more standard equipment than Citroen's C3, C4 and C5, allowing them to be sold at higher profit margins.
WorldCarFans.com is reporting that Fiat & PSA/Peugeot-Citroen are about to merge. The story, which apparently originated in Italy, states the reason for the merger is to try and survive the global financial crisis. It's that simple: merge or die.
So here we have one more example of just how far-reaching this economic debacle is. If this merger does come about, it would create the fourth largest automaker in the world, rivaling VW and Renault-Nissan in scale.
Yep, Sebastien Loeb and Citroen took the usual top spot at the 2008 WRC Acropolis rally this weekend. However, for Subaru fans, the debut of the all-new WRC 2008 rally racer, was equally noteworthy. In the hands of Petter Solberg, it placed second in this very grueling rally, which is known as one of the toughest on the WRC race calender. Much hope and great expectations are being placed on this all-new racer from Subaru, and in its initial outing showed great promise for the future...
