Sunday 9th July 2017

Citroen needs help making a C3 WRC

French firm wants a road-going WRC homage - how would you do it?

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Citroen wants to make a sporty road car that links back to its big-budget WRC rally car programme - but it doesn't yet know how. CEO Linda Jackson has given the project to product planning boss Xavier Peugeot, but admits "we don't yet have a solution."

It's an important project, she said, during a recent interview in Paris. "Why do we go rallying? To increase awareness of the Citroen brand; marketing thus needs to create a road car link back to it." Citroen is running the C3 in WRC this year and Jackson admits that "if we are winning, it shows our cars have high-performance endurance, but we don't yet have a close link yet."

So, she's open to suggestions. She admitted multiple ideas are now being considered, which made us think. Why don't we crowdsource PistonHeads readers to come up with the ideal spec for a sporty Citroen, and send across our suggestions? There's a little guidance from Jackson here: she suggests it shouldn't be too extreme and far down the hot hatch scale: PSA already has DS 3 Performance and 208 GTI by PS doing that job for it. She suggests a different, more accessible take on performance, which we're happy to run with.

How about this for starters: take the regular 1.2-litre PureTech 110 C3, swap the engine for the 130hp iteration from the Peugeot 3008 and bingo: you've a car with a better power-to-weight ratio than the old AX GT (and way more torque). In Flair guise, the C3 PureTech weighs 1050kg; strip out a few bits (split-fold rear seat, space-saver spare wheel, rear electric windows, some soundproofing) and you could get it tantalisingly close to 1000kg. Sportier springs and dampers would be an easy fit, but we wouldn't go too extreme on the firmness - an element of all-surface drivability, a la the WRC car, is quite appealing, no? A sort of Ariel Nomad-style approach: it would work well with the chunky wheel arches and Airbumps.

Citroen has a ready-made real-world alternative to sporting brands' inbuilt GoPro systems, too: ConnectedCAM Citroen. Standard on the Flair, this auto-records 30 seconds before and a minute after a heavy braking incident, so you can save it if you need to report a crash. Why not alter this to kicking in when you press a sport button on the dash, so you can easily share your hot hatch exploits to social media? Quite the winner with the younger buyers it seems Jackson would like such a car to appeal to (hence not going too crazy on the power).

With some well-judged WRC-style styling and a suitably snazzy set of alloys, it sounds like a winner to us, particularly as it needn't cost a fortune, so wouldn't step on the 208 GTI's toes. And if there were any issues with using the WRC name for a road car, surely Mr. Peugeot could secure the use of the Rallye brand, no? That's our starter for 10, anyway - now, over to you. How would you create an affordable WRC-inspired Citroen C3 good enough to win kudos from enthusiasts? PH - and Citroen - would love to hear from you.

[Rally shots: LAT Photo]

[MustardCutter]

Needs a turbo'd 4 banger, 4WD, big wheel arches and rear spoiler for any kind of WRC link/credibility IMO. Else it's just marketing guff. Of course none of that could be filed under affordable or young driver insurance friendly so I fear what they end up producing will be as lame as the 'by Loeb' editions of yesteryear...

Edited by MustardCutter on Thursday 6th July 15:19

[Choppers]

How about adding a SatNav that specialises in navigating car parks

[thundercolo]

Taking into account that most WRC rallies are off road, I would go that way with the road car. Raise the ride height, put small white rims with big sidewall tyres, unpainted wheelarches, stripped low quality interior, remove sound deadening, small turbo engine, almost no aero...

All these savings would allow fitting high quality dampers, a nice pair of baquet seats, suede steering wheel, white gear knob, a racy sounding exhaust and very colorful paint scheme.

It would make a cheap, light and highly enjoyable car.

[Bonefish Blues]

So a more modern 106 Rallye then?

[hairyben]

Is this a sniffpetrol article? Citroen, hugely successful in wrc, want to make a road car to reflect that but aren't quite sure how or what that looks like.

sums up a lot of whats wrong in WRC doesn't it, if you want to follow something with no remote connection to what you drive you're into F1 or or offshore powerboat racing or freestyle motoX, WRC today seems as relevant to manufacturers as F1, more of a hands-off contracted marketing exercise rather than a division to prove and innovate.

[drifterelite]

I get the rallying thing that they're trying to go for, but with their own restrictions a proper mad little rally hatch isn't really feasible without it looking a bit tame

IMO I'd rather see them trying the funky warm hatch market instead, take their C1 and the aforementioned 3008 130bhp 1.2, mush them together, put all the TCS/STM/ABS on a switch that you can leave off. Lower the car a bit, put it on some chunky 195/45/15 alloy wheels, give it a more prominent spoiler and some other sporty exterior bits, lose a bit of weight somewhere, give it a sporty exhaust to allow people to hear the rather rorty 3 pot note and voila, a proper warm hatch again!

[rastapasta]

Bonefish Blues said:

So a more modern 106 Rallye then?

Yes and something that passes crash regulations. However Once it does pass the regulations it will probably no longer weigh in under 1200kg which would defeat the purpose.

[TooMany2cvs]

Linking the dashcam to the "watch this..." button. Can we have it auto-uploading to YouTube, too, 30 seconds after the impact?

What could possibly go wrong?

[RacerMike]

Pistonheads readership will say they would buy the following (but won't):

Less than 1000kg
Manual
4WD
No ABS or TCS
Perspex windows
No air con or radio
Eco tyres
12,000GBP

The market actually demands:

Less than 2000kg
Twin Clutch
4WD with some kind of rear bias
Driver Modes
Apple Car Play
Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s
Less than 400GBP per month

The ideal actually sits somewhere in the middle. Personally I'd like to see something AWD, a bit mad, 300+ bhp, around 1400kg, Cup 2s, limited run and more premium than the competition (i.e. bespoke interior, cage, 2 seats etc...).

I think some sort of 'if Porsche GT did a rally rep' idea would be what I'd want. Capable, fast, lots of tech and limited run.

[C.A.R.]

Some stickers, white paint on the (standard) wheels, and some special stitching in the headrests. No mechanical difference from rest of range.

That's what it'll probably end up as after everything has been through the various 'cost planning' stages...

[slipstream 1985]

You missed the boat when the C4 was ruling the roost with sebastian Loab and people cared or followed WRC in much bigger numbers.

[ambuletz]

they should go along similar lines to what renault do with the clio. make a C3 VTi (or whatever) then offer a package that makes it more focused. and for a little more then that make a more hardcore verson that's stripped out, plastic windows etc..

[Dovile]

spec;

• based maybe on mid-level 'feel' trim instead of top-spec 'flair', to do away with things like auto lights and wipers, fog lights, tinted rear windows........ the frontfacing camera could stay as an option
• 130ps 1.2petrol...........no diesel options allowed

looks;

• white alloys! even the standard items, just refinished in white... why so many cars come with chrome on window lines/grilles, and diamond finish for the wheels nowadays?! looks ste.
• RED SEATBELTS
• availability of non-metallic red paint colour with decal package to closer resemble the wrc car........kind of like mitsubishi evo 6 tme had as an option.

as for the trim level naming issue.....if citroen cannot use anything directly wrc-related through copyrights or w/e, then maybe they could revive nameplates of their past - they used to have faster specials decades ago (some even were for homologation), for citroen visa, which also was 5-door-only hatch

visa trophee


visa 1000 pistes- named after a rally.......well, if skoda can use 'monte-carlo'.......


citroen chrono


drapeau - uk-only, non-performance special edition, word meaning flag


.........to name but a few. they also had the c2 gt.


as an aside note, we do have a current shape citroen c1 82ps, in the standard red colour...... maybe i make the alloys + roof in white and put some citroen stickers to create a mini-me of sorts, for cheeky fun if nothing else.

[DelicaL400]

Some dampers that work would be a start, unlike the C3 WRC.

[LotusOmega375D]

They've got poor form in this area.



So much so that they took them back as many as they could and scrapped them.

[maffski]

Turn it into a hybrid - electric RWD ala Volvo to give 4WD without so much chassis engineering and using the existing FWD powertrain.

[TooMany2cvs]

maffski said:

Turn it into a hybrid - electric RWD ala Volvo to give 4WD without so much chassis engineering and using the existing FWD powertrain.

You know PSA have been doing that on showroom-available cars for years longer than Volvo, right? The 3008 HYbrid4 was launched in 2011.

[51mes]

It's a rally car - why the cup2's should we not think of some bad weather capability - something like cross climates, white wheels (keep them under 16") as said before - and pump it up a little throw some decent seats (rob em from the DS3), remove a little sound proofing and add a bit of protective bling - install a tuneful exhaust and wastegate to allow you to get noise through from the turbo

Engine - hmm they only seem to do the 110 Puretech -use the THP 210 from the DS3 (manual only unfortunately) or tune a bit of performance at least from the puretech there is a 130 engine?

I'd probably go auto - though don't know if there is a box to suit but put flappy paddles and make an effort with the gearstick making it look like a sequential shifter . Also you can't have a rally car without a proper handbrake!

Now I notice a lack of AWD (unless it's been done in partnership with Mitsubishi) so this may not be an easy direction of travel.. though the Grip control modes from the C4 Cactus may be of interest?

Again as said before red belts - and some jazzy software to go on the infotainment system (lateral g, lap stopwatch/split time etc) - also only offer it in red/white/blue to match the rally car..

Citroen C3 - RallyeSport. ;-)

S.

[Yipper]

Does anyone still watch rallying?!

[Jerry Can]

Yipper said:

Does anyone still watch rallying?!

yes yipper they do.

The current cars are the bks, I for one do not care that there is not much of a road car link, they look a bit like them and go like stink. that'll do.

As for Linda's predicament
C1 Visa Sport.

C1, 1.2 turbo, 125hp, stripped out as much as possible, up grade the suspension to aid handling. 21st century 106 rallye. Cheap and fast enough.

She should ask Carlos Tavares ( CEO PSA), unusually for Motor industry top brass, he is a racing nut ( done over 500 races over 30 years, competes in MC rallye historique in a Samba Rallye, or it might be a 104).Whilst he is in charge, PSA will do motorsport.