Citroen Essentielle – budget Citroen range

Citroen are planning a budget range of Eco cars – Citroen Essentielle – which will launch in 2010/2013.

Back in March we reported that Citroen were planning to build a new range of Eco cars based on the C-Cactus Concept. Well, it looks like Citroen are about to announce a new budget range of cars – Citroen Essentielle – if reports by La Tribune this morning are anything to go by – so it looks like we got it right.

As we know, Citroen is heading upmarket with the Citroen DS range, but they obviously feel there’s room for a bite at both ends of the cherry. And it looks like Citroen could well use the C-Cactus concept we saw at Frankfurt in 2007 as the basis for a new range of Eco cars. That’s Eco as in Economy and Eco as in, well, Eco.

Logically, this is a look back at Citroen’s history. In the ’50s and ’60s they succeeded in marketing the high-end DS range – including a Maserati version – at the same time as the ultra-budget 2CV. So they obviously feel it can be done again in the 21st century.

This can also be looked at as Citroen’s riposte to the very successful budget range of cars that Renault produces for the Eastern European market – the Dacia. They sell by the shed-load, so there’s obviously a big market out there for budget cars. And if, as the reports suggest, the new Citroen Essentielle range is not just economically priced and built but low on emissions and high on economy – with Hybrid models planned –  Citroen could be on to a winner.

It looks like these reports will be confirmed by Citroen in the next few days, and are planned to launch probably in 2012.

We’ll keep you posted.

Citroen C-Cactus Concept Photo Image Gallery