A project intended to respond more closely to the expectations of consumers in the segment while maintaining Citroën’s typical originality, to create a car that is visually pleasing and elegant, whose exterior design expresses its practicality and functionality, and, lastly, to package the generous interior space in sleek lines. “We had to bring everything together successfully in spite of a number of contrasting constraints”, explains chief designer Marc Pinson as he describes the inception of the new Citroën C4 unveiled at Paris, a car that is decidedly more premium and mature than its predecessor.
“The first generation stood out for a style that was very avant-garde at the time of its launch. For this car, we wanted to develop some of those aesthetic values while drawing inspiration from more upmarket segments for aspects such as poise, quality and performance, to better respond to the demands of the consumer for a five door hatchback in the intermediate segment – which we call the M1 segment in France”, continues Pinson.
Pinson’s role in Citroën design is ‘Range Director’, with the term range used by the double chevron brand to indicate a complete product programme encompassing all the derivative body style variants which, in the case of the C4, also includes the more avant-garde DS4 (another car debuting at Paris this year, which was previewed at Geneva in March by the High Rider)
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 184
