Citroën C-Aircross exterior: Gunning for the young

One of the key influences on the C-Aircross Concept unveiled in Geneva this year was, according to its designer, a popular sportswear shop called Citadium in Paris. Frédéric Duvernier, Head of Citroën Concept Cars and the car’s exterior designer, says he wanted the colour palette to reflect the sneakers and casual clothing that young people favour.

“It’s based on bright colours, like the fluorescent colour that’s a little bit pink,” he says. “There’s no metallic paint on the body, instead it’s closer to denim jeans, for example. It’s really a sportswear approach, visible through the colours.”

The aim is not simply to reflect the tastes of youthful Parisians. As Duvernier notes, China is exerting an increasing influence over European car design. “China is full of young people – the average age is 35 when they buy a new car whereas it’s something like 55 or 60 in Europe,” he observes. “Their state of mind is absolutely different. They are really willing to change things; they move quicker.”

The car’s SUV shape is clearly intended to appeal to fashion-conscious buyers, a clear step away from the dowdy associations of people carriers.

C-Aircross previews a new production Citroën, due to be revealed in June as the C3-something – perhaps C3 Aircross or C3 Picasso. It appears poised to supplant the latter in the company’s range. And as is typically the case with a production-based concept, many of the more arresting aspects of the C-Aircross seem unlikely to translate to production – most notably the pillarless apertures with suicide rear doors. Like most such previews, it mixes the marvellous with the mundane.

The concept was also designed over the past year, trailing after the production car it previews by many months. Creating the show car thus meant digging over old ground. “We try to find the state of mind we had, but also we’ve moved on,” Duvernier notes. “So we have to think again. Some things we start over, some things we sharpen up, to be sure of the message we want to send. The fun part of doing show cars is that we can be free again in terms of the shapes. We beautify things and emphasise the messages.”

As well as the youthful colours, those messages include the latest iteration of Citroën’s familiar face, with its upper strip linking the chevron logo with wide-spaced daylight lamps, forming a strong horizontal line above the islands of air intake and lamps. Another very noticeable item is a floating C-post cover in an unusual, comb-like shape, popping out in orangey fluorescent pink. The teeth of the comb allow occupants to see out though the C-pillar while outsiders can’t see in.

“We have a history at Citroën of playing with the C-post area,” Duvernier says. “If you look at the BX, XM, SM, as you move back in history there is always something different and special, on every car, so it’s an area where we can have some fun.”

The roof rails, coloured and shaped to index with the C-post cover, feature unusually slim bars, Duvernier adds. “The market is full of roof rails – they are boring things so we’ve joined it visually to the C-post, to compact the silhouette and also to make it shorter than it really is.”

The visual connection to C3 and C4 Picasso is also clear, but Duvernier rejects any suggestion that the C-Aircross might look ever familiar. “It’s more muscular, it’s higher on its wheels, it has different treatments everywhere. It’s not copy-paste,” he asserts. “It’s the graphic approach that remains; the smooth approach to shapes.”

The bodysides are intended to look like sheets of material with hard objects pushing through from the inside, Durvernier says. As with the C3 hatchback, sharp-edged chamfers ring the wheel-arch cladding. “We have an extremely smooth and full body-colour area so to counterbalance this we have some crisp entertainment,” Duvernier says. “We also have this kind of camouflage pattern on the plastic parts – to put some interest into them. It’s subtle but it’s there.”

Rear lamps, comprising triple hoops of light, are also striking. They feature aluminium housings that act as heat-sinks for the LED components – “if you touch it, it’s warm,” says Duvernier. He adds that the designer who came up with them was inspired by artist Anish Kapoor, renowned for both high-tech and biomorphic works: “The original sketches were kind of organic and technological slices.”

Lozenge-shaped elements are plentiful on the C-Aircross, including in the sharp graphical patterns of the wheels, designed by Kate Whatmore. “We both love those spectacular 1970s wheels, extremely concave, sculpted in sharply chopped 3D, and graphically extremely simple like a logotype,” Duvernier says. “I love the original Countach, for example – the wheels are a real tribute to this period.”

Duvernier says he was also influenced by earlier cars when it came to defining the concept’s overall shape, striving for an uncomplicated silhouette. “Simple geometries are the best – the old cars that people love, they all have a simple geometry,” he observes. “Just look at the Beetle or the 2CV or the Porsche 911, you can really reduce them to just a few simple shapes. The DS as well. I always ask myself this question, every time, on every project: can my kid draw this quickly or not?”

The form is not without its tricks, of course. The bonnet is quite short, but it starts a long way back from the actual front of the car to help disguise the front overhang. “That’s part of the process,” Duvernier admits. “We made it seem as short as possible, so the cabin is pushed forward … I like the car the way it is – it’s quite cute, it has muscles, and we have developed our design language really clearly now.”

Duvernier argues that Citroën’s design vocabulary is not only cohesive but also quite distinct from its competitors. “The clean surfacing, the graphic contrasts, the attention to detail – to me that doesn’t exist yet among our competitors,” he says “In this way we are keeping really true to the Citroën DNA – being original and staying out of general mainstream design.”