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After seventeen years of good and loyal service, the Citroën C1 is withdrawing from the market and will not be directly replaced… for the moment.
Citroën announces the end of production of the C1 city car, after seventeen years and around 1.2 million units sold, leaving the manufacturer without representation in the A segment.
According to Citroën, this decision was taken because of the “new mobility challenges” faced by the micro-city car sector, but also “the major change in traffic conditions in cities as well as the acceleration of the energy transition”. In reality, it is above all the strict emission regulations and the high safety standards of today’s cars that make it difficult for affordable internal combustion engine models to be profitable in the smaller segments.
The first generation of the Citroën C1 was introduced on the market in 2005. It shares with its cousins, the Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo, the same chassis, the same engine, the same interior and most of the body elements. The trio was restyled in 2009 and then in 2012, before giving way to the second generation in 2014. In 2018, Groupe PSA and Toyota announced that they were ending joint production of cars at the end of the cycle of life of their vehicle at the plant in Kolín, Czech Republic.
Citroën and Peugeot, now members of the Stellantis group, have decided not to develop a new generation of petrol vehicles in the A segment. Toyota therefore remains alone in this niche with the all-new Aygo X, based on its TNGA-B platform. and expected in concession for March 2022. Although the A segment is shrinking, it is not excluded to consider a return of micro-city cars equipped with purely electric engines, since they could share the entrails of the next generation of Fiat Panda.
For the moment, Citroën does not intend to offer an immediate successor to the C1, indeed hoping that buyers will turn to either the fun but very limited Ami or the larger but more practical Citroën C3.
Moreover, to make the latter more attractive, the manufacturer is introducing a new variant at a more competitive price. Called C3 YOU!, it is marketed from €14,490, or from €169 per month in LLD. This series rather well equipped with equipment thus costs less than the Citroën C1 in Shine finish.