After a decade of WRC wins, why hasn't Citroen..
Discussion
.. trickled down some of its WRC tech into its road cars ? like what ferrari does with F1 tech, and Subaru/Mitsubishi did with WRC... they have a decade of straight championship wins, couldn't they EVEN accidently create a new niche market, replacing the 2l turbo road going rally car, with a 4WD 1.6 turbo 250hp+ road going rally DS3 ??
Odd but not without precedence. I imagine the key reason any manufacturer supports motorsport is to enhance/develop/reinforce brand image and awareness- old cliche win Sunday, sell Monday.
Yet rallying doesn't seem to have always worked. Lancia had a similar purple patch with the Intergrale yet the company stopped selling cars in the UK shortly afterwards. The brand is now confused within the Fiat empire when it could have been developed into an Italian BMW (imo). How strongly or effectively do Citroen use their recent success in car development and marketing? Maybe they have and it's passed us by but it's not exactly shouted from the rooftops.
Rallying doesn't get the coverage it once did either, perhaps the mainstream awareness of the world competition isn't there as a result.
Yet rallying doesn't seem to have always worked. Lancia had a similar purple patch with the Intergrale yet the company stopped selling cars in the UK shortly afterwards. The brand is now confused within the Fiat empire when it could have been developed into an Italian BMW (imo). How strongly or effectively do Citroen use their recent success in car development and marketing? Maybe they have and it's passed us by but it's not exactly shouted from the rooftops.
Rallying doesn't get the coverage it once did either, perhaps the mainstream awareness of the world competition isn't there as a result.
BOBTEE said:
They don't sell their old WRC cars off either like Ford/Msport and Subaru/Prodrive do/did, so maybe it was secret tech and Loeb wasn't all that?! 
I should imagine there would be very little of a WRC car that would be any use on a road car anyway.
Don't they? There were quite a few privately entered Xsara WRC's around, and a few C4's aswell I thought. Solberg ran a 2003 Xsara privately for a year after Subaru pulled out.I should imagine there would be very little of a WRC car that would be any use on a road car anyway.
maybe it was all Loeb, but they don't have to say exactly that when they are promoting this new road-going rally car. Ferrari brags about its F1 wins and were putting plaques on their road cars. ford got happy with 4 wins in a row,. with citroen, we're talking almost a decade.. surely they'd rub it in abit and take advantage of it, or maybe they are modest 
haha. they don't even need the tech, just get a DS3, keep the 1.6 turbo 4 pot, up the turbo to 300hp, make it light by getting rid of airbags, electric seats etc, add 4wd, keep prices below £20k, mention the 9 years WRC championship on every promotion, they'll sell like hotcakes. and in a way it will have racing heritage to it. people who bought ferrari's with "f1 paddles" would like that. not saying they would buy a souped up DS3 but there is definitely a market for it.
haha. they don't even need the tech, just get a DS3, keep the 1.6 turbo 4 pot, up the turbo to 300hp, make it light by getting rid of airbags, electric seats etc, add 4wd, keep prices below £20k, mention the 9 years WRC championship on every promotion, they'll sell like hotcakes. and in a way it will have racing heritage to it. people who bought ferrari's with "f1 paddles" would like that. not saying they would buy a souped up DS3 but there is definitely a market for it.blahblop123 said:
they don't even need the tech, just get a DS3, keep the 1.6 turbo 4 pot, up the turbo to 300hp, make it light by getting rid of airbags, electric seats etc, add 4wd, keep prices below £20k, mention the 9 years WRC championship on every promotion, they'll sell like hotcakes.
I am convinced that most PHers have no idea what cars cost.xRIEx said:
blahblop123 said:
they don't even need the tech, just get a DS3, keep the 1.6 turbo 4 pot, up the turbo to 300hp, make it light by getting rid of airbags, electric seats etc, add 4wd, keep prices below £20k, mention the 9 years WRC championship on every promotion, they'll sell like hotcakes.
I am convinced that most PHers have no idea what cars cost.My company shed (pretty boggo Megane DCI - the only extras are metallic paint and navigation) comes in at around £21k.
Now, add 4wd and a high performance petrol turbo... how much do you think that would cost?
WHAT WRC tech? They are all heavily restricted in what they can do. The biggest thing they could bring down are the differentials.
The rest - the engine, the brakes, the suspension, the chassis design, are all pretty boiler plate stuff.
I'm lucky enough to work for Ford Product Development and get to speak to the WRC teams every now and again when they come to use our wind tunnels for high altitude tests and whatnot and underneath there really isn't that much too them. There's more technology in our regular Fiesta.
But I do agree, Citroen should have focused on a 'GTI' version of their cars. The DS3 Racing was a fairly good attempt.
Oh and they wont do 4WD. Pointless weight and cost. I agree that PHers have no idea how much this stuff costs. A 200BHP version of their 1.6 Turbo wont be so cheap...but a 300BHP version would be - it'd need a lot of uprated components.
The rest - the engine, the brakes, the suspension, the chassis design, are all pretty boiler plate stuff.
I'm lucky enough to work for Ford Product Development and get to speak to the WRC teams every now and again when they come to use our wind tunnels for high altitude tests and whatnot and underneath there really isn't that much too them. There's more technology in our regular Fiesta.
But I do agree, Citroen should have focused on a 'GTI' version of their cars. The DS3 Racing was a fairly good attempt.
Oh and they wont do 4WD. Pointless weight and cost. I agree that PHers have no idea how much this stuff costs. A 200BHP version of their 1.6 Turbo wont be so cheap...but a 300BHP version would be - it'd need a lot of uprated components.
rhinochopig said:
Here's a clue: how well have Evos and Imprezas sold of late?
They don't sell because both decided to bite the hand that fed them + 280hp does not result in that fast a car in 2013. Up the power (or make them lighter) along with sorting the looks (take the old Hawkeye Imprezza vs the current horrible looking hatch) and they would sell no problem.
vs
TX.
GroundEffect said:
WHAT WRC tech? They are all heavily restricted in what they can do. The biggest thing they could bring down are the differentials.
The rest - the engine, the brakes, the suspension, the chassis design, are all pretty boiler plate stuff.
I'm lucky enough to work for Ford Product Development and get to speak to the WRC teams every now and again when they come to use our wind tunnels for high altitude tests and whatnot and underneath there really isn't that much too them. There's more technology in our regular Fiesta.
But I do agree, Citroen should have focused on a 'GTI' version of their cars. The DS3 Racing was a fairly good attempt.
Oh and they wont do 4WD. Pointless weight and cost. I agree that PHers have no idea how much this stuff costs. A 200BHP version of their 1.6 Turbo wont be so cheap...but a 300BHP version would be - it'd need a lot of uprated components.
This. and ironically this is also what has killed WRC, no link to road cars so people have just stopped caring. The rest - the engine, the brakes, the suspension, the chassis design, are all pretty boiler plate stuff.
I'm lucky enough to work for Ford Product Development and get to speak to the WRC teams every now and again when they come to use our wind tunnels for high altitude tests and whatnot and underneath there really isn't that much too them. There's more technology in our regular Fiesta.
But I do agree, Citroen should have focused on a 'GTI' version of their cars. The DS3 Racing was a fairly good attempt.
Oh and they wont do 4WD. Pointless weight and cost. I agree that PHers have no idea how much this stuff costs. A 200BHP version of their 1.6 Turbo wont be so cheap...but a 300BHP version would be - it'd need a lot of uprated components.
Citroen have always been a "modest" manufacturer,they seem to pride themselves on producing cars with adequate rather than class leading power.
I guess they just don't think it would be good business to make a road going rally replica but you can't knock their commitment to motorsport with support of lower rally categories as well as the WRC with the DS3 R2/R3 and the DS3 Rallycross cars.
I guess they just don't think it would be good business to make a road going rally replica but you can't knock their commitment to motorsport with support of lower rally categories as well as the WRC with the DS3 R2/R3 and the DS3 Rallycross cars.
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