“There’s more passion here than at a normal car show”

Citroen sported a strong stand at this year’s Retromobile with a curated selection of past concepts alongside the new ELO.

From the historic Traction Avant 15-6 (1939) – inspired by a water droplet – to the trapezoidal and very-brown Karin (1980), it was quite the highlight reel. The Karin did in fact win the ‘Post-War’ category as part of the Retromobile Preservation Awards. 

Just like those weathered show cars – paint cracked, tyre labels peeling and windows heavily swirled from years of polishing – the bright orange ELO has seen plenty of action since its reveal late in December 2025 and is already gathering its own patina. As a collection, it showed how the brand has never been afraid to try new things.

Taking this all in among the many interested visitors was Pierre Leclercq and a few of his departmental leads. Speaking with CDN from the stand, the designer was in high spirits and clearly enjoying the presence of some retro models. Here he speaks about heritage and why bold colour themes should – and will – make a comeback.

Car Design News: What is the interest in a show like Retromobile for Citroen and your design team? 

Pierre Leclercq: It's a very good question. First of all, we're in Paris and we’re a French brand, so there’s that. The first time I came here with Citroen I was blown away, it's a super cool show. I would love to come one day with a lot of cash in my pocket to come shopping because there are some incredible cars. It’s very inspiring. There’s so much passion, much more here than in any car show you can imagine. That much love for the car industry alone is a good reason for me to be here with our cars.

The idea this year to put all these cars together is super interesting because you realise there's a certain philosophy of our founder, André Citroën, that we have continued. A kind of red line that connects over the decades. And it's very different here to what you see with Peugeot [next door] which shows how our brands are actually very different.

CDN: It’s not a small stand here, but you do have a limited amount of space to work with. How did you decide which concepts to display, and was design involved in that decision?

PL: Yes, it's a common discussion. We talked about which cars should be here, and it's a hard choice because there's so many of them [laughs]. And on top of that, right now we don't have a museum, so those cars are just waiting somewhere to be exhibited. 

To only pull out a few of them is a really tough choice, honestly — you would have wanted to put twice as many if we had the space. But I think our selection is right for this year’s show, I’m super happy. The 1939 2CV A is here [next to the ELO] and it’s interesting to see the C-Cactus because, even though it is not that old, you can see the influence it has had on some cars.

CDN: I had hoped that we might see the Osée…

PL: Ah, yes that is a cool one. I love it! I haven't seen it in our collection, actually. I’ll have to go and find it! 

CDN: Ahead of our CMF livestream next month, I wondered if you see any particular trends that will be prevalent across the year?

PL: It's always interesting because in the car industry it's very difficult to say ‘next year’ or even ‘the next 10 years.’

Green came back a couple of years ago and I think there's so many greens to experiment with. I love it as a colour and I think we have to have more of it on the road. I'll show you my car, my wife and I love it: a C5 Aircross in bright green. Driving this car made me change my mindset a little bit about exterior colours. I think we need to be more courageous. It's fun to drive a colour that is a bit more extreme.

CDN: I have just given back a test car that was purple, so I agree with you. Sometimes driving a fun colour makes for a nice change.

PL: We need to be a bit more courageous. We maybe haven’t pushed that so much as an industry, but in general I think green still has a great future and I believe very much in that colour. Today you can put some incredible colours out there, and with the ELO we have paint that goes from red to orange, yellow and sometimes a bit pink. I love that. I think we should put it on the road.

First sight: Citroen ELO concept

Citroen's zesty new concept rethinks the MPV

Freddie Holmes

CDN: So are you pushing for that to be an option for production cars?

PL: Yes. Maybe that's going to create a trend, I don't know. We can try this on the car, but we're also trying to reinvent colours of our wheels too. Why should you have black and aluminium all the time, why can't you have interesting colours there as well? 

So even though we don't have super expensive luxury wheels as options at Citroen, we can still make strong choices and bring colour to the road.