Citroen boss puts profits ahead of heritage and style

For years Citroën's DNA make-up was dominated by the core values of innovation, risk-taking and challenging the boundaries of conventional car design. They were the epitome of French car design, more so than the other brands.

Models like the Traction Avant, 2CV and DS were the icons of avant-garde motoring. Even philosopher Jean Paul Sartre wrote on their rich character and beauty.

How times have changed. Market share and profit are king at Citroëtoday. That's the message from chief executive Claude Satinet.

The cold wind of financial reality seems to have blown away the innovation and avant-garde. Citroën is no longer prepared to be the poor but quirky car firm that comes out with "all those funny looking cars".

Citroën boss Satinet won't hear any more pleas for clemency towards the unique styling of old.

"Nowadays there is no money to be made from that," he says. "Design fantasies are only permitted if they are functional. We want to be a mainstream brand; we do not want to return to those times. It's our culture to maintain our own identity and we know our history, but we want to continue to build normal Citroën cars. Customers want first and foremost a form of transport." The implication being that they don't want to stand out as some designer symbol.

To car fans such comments seem cold and austere. We suggest to Satinet that if mainstream is all that matters, then why should Citroën not just merge with its sister company, Peugeot, and be done with it? Surely it would make more sense for the PSA Group than competing against itself with two mainstream brands largely chasing the same market segments.

"There's pure competition between the two brands," explains Satinet. "We have two dealer networks, but it's not about synergies at that level. On a European scale we hold a 13 per cent market share in the PSA Group.

"The biggest any single brand can hold, it seems, is 9 per cent on the European market. So if we were to merge the brands into one, there's no way we could hope to get our share above 10 per cent."

It all seems logical, even if a little cold from such a passionate car firm.

Yet for all the outcry from traditionalists who demand that Citroëbe forever the avant-garde and unconventional car firm, there was a need for someone with a strong business focus.

Sales were less than exhilirating, and the brand was beginning to get a reputation for questionable quality. Citroën had to turn itself into a profitable enterprise to survive.

For all those who call for Citroën to return to its old ways, when it comes to the crunch these supporters of the avant-garde cannot and will not keep the company afloat financially. Neither will the French taxpayer.

Citroën had to get shrewd. As evidence of its new determined business focus, just consider its remarkable ability to enter into joint ventures.

Citroën has long been master of the industrial joint venture. Aside from its obvious association with Peugeot, the C8 also exists as a Fiat and a Lancia.

PSA has also co-developed a 2.7-litre diesel with Ford and is also working on a new family of petrol engines with BMW, due in 2006.

Then there's a further deal with Ford to co-develop 1.4 and 1.6-litre diesels, as well as a new passenger car platform to be shared with Toyota.

This platform will be for small cars to be built at a new factory at Kolin in the Czech Republic.

Last week it opened a new €130 million Euro design centre at Velizy on the southern outskirts of Paris, where all future Citroën and Peugeot's will be developed. All part of the cost-cutting exercise and very admirable from a shareholder point of view.

Yet thankfully for car fans, buried deep within the organisation, the avant-garde resistance movement has managed to sneak through some welcome changes to the model line-up; none more so than the new C4.

Its predecessor, the Xsara, represented everything that was wrong with Citroën. From the firm that had charm, warmth and character in abundance came a car so anodyne and charmless it could just as well have been carrying a Japanese logo.

Its replacement, however, seems to swing more towards the old times, from its fixed hub steering wheel to its coupé lines, the C4 shows there's still some radical thinkers left at the brand.

And while the C5 facelift will hardly shake car buyers to the core, the new C6 flagship due here next year will be the first big Citroën since the XM. With all of these will come a host of derivatives.

The cautiousness of Satinet is understandable given their proximity to another French brand which recently tried to pursue unconventional design.

Renault's flop with the Avantime, and its difficulty with the Vel Satis shows that for all our desires to see more character in the cars on the market, not enough people are prepared to part with hard-earned cash to buy them. Sad but true.