Monday 20th August 2007

Citroen C5 Airscape Concept Arrives

New concept stuffed with technology

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Sleek lines hide advanced tech

It’s motor show season again and that means one thing: Citroen are going to release some kind of odd concept.

The Citroen C5 Airscape is an interesting take on the ‘executive cabriolet’ genre, and comes packed with some very innovative (not to mention eco-friendly) technology.

To start the ball rolling, it has a carbon fibre roof – so you can have convertible styling without having to carry too much extra weight.  

Healthy fuel = less emissions

It also features a new ‘UrbanHybrid’ system that uses a reversible alternator-starter and super capacitors- apparently nothing like the ones in Back to the Future. All this allows, amongst other things, internal electrics like the CD player and air con to be powered by energy recouped by regenerative braking

The Airscape is fitted with a 208bhp 2.7 HDi V6 lump fitted with a particulate filter and tuned to run on biodiesel, aiding it’s planet saving credentials.

How can you say that isn't pretty?

Citroen are also trying to make it safe in low grip conditions and have come up with ‘Snow Motion’ technology to help stay glued to the road when things get a bit slippery.

As far is looks go it is quite pretty, and gives off very strong hints as to how the new C5 will look.

The concept itself is fitted with a brown leather interior and lashings of chrome – all to aid its desired ‘executive’ image as thats what todays executive wants, apparently.

It might not be a 3 Series Coupe, but it looks OK and being a Citroen it will probably be cheap too. But will it look anything like this we wonder?

[groomi]

Now even Citroen are building Audi clones.

Time to reach for the razor blades methinks...

[groomi]

pumpkin said:

Really, really ugly front. Nose is too fat and bonnet too high but I suppose that just fits in with modern un-aerodynamic styling where style wins over function and the stylist over the engineer.

Completely the opposite in reality. The nose has to meet very stringent pedestrian impact tests now, so it is a real engineering challenge to meet these tests while maintaining the stylists preferred low nose. Cars like the new Jaguar XK have to have small explosives under the bonnet so it 'pops up' a few cm in the event of an accident to protect pedestrians from the solid engine underneath. Mainstream manufacturers like Citroen couldn't use such expesnive technology in their cars.