alt Hacker News>As they face mounting competition from Chinese manufacturers, Citroen and other European brands are exploiting their heritage as a means of selling modern motors
Heritage and vintage looks of the EU car industry, will only take you so far. Working class people still choose best bang/range for the buck car since their car is a tool, not a fashion statement bag.
Those who treat their car as a fashion accessory are few and the fad of such a retro model wears off quickly when too many people end up with them making them uncool again, like the VW did with the new beetle.
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"heritage" isn't about fashion, Citroen is signaling a specific value proposition and ethos through this choice. And also enough commitment to burn their one throw at this target.
They already went a similar direction with the Ami,it was a pretty bold move and it was met with very decent sales https://www.passionnement-citroen.com/post/citroen-ami-premi...
Point taken but I’m pretty sure working class people choose based on initial cost, not bang/range for the buck.
I think you are wrong, I live in the UK and people around me drive used BMW x5s and Range Rovers both objectively bad vehicles and not best bang for buck.
Car are a fashion statement no matter how much or little wealth you have.
Meanwhile, at least Dutch roads are full of Renault 5 electrics (https://www.renault.nl/elektrische-autos/r5-e-tech-electric....) and FIAT 500's (https://www.fiat.nl/modellen/fiat-500-hybrid).
I agree that vanity cars that are a shitty car that looks like a classic serve little value. However good cars that "interpolate" and reinterpret classics can be absolutely fine; the originals did become classics for a reason.
There must be the equivalent for "first as a tragedy then as a comedy" saying for commercial product. "first as a tool then as a totem" or something like that.
> Heritage and vintage looks, will only take you so far.
Amen. A, in this case rather ugly, restyling of a wheeled smartphone is not something I have an interest in. That's why you need the people that work on designing and signing-off (on) the thing understand what made the original such an oustanding design in the first place.
Citroen is already the Stellantis' equivalent of Skoda niche for Volkswagen.
I feel like the Mustang has been able to go pretty far on heritage and vintage looks.
I was thinking about this last night - the European car industry's ripe for disruption by a nimble car company that can make really basic EVs with none of the pointless, excessive cruft that seems endemic in every new car release.
It's only Dacia who seems to understand that there's big market for basic but half-decent cars that don't bill themselves as infotainment fourth spaces, or whatever the hell it is that they're trying to go for [1].
Give me wind up windows, give me an analogue dashboard, give me a basic interface for my phone, etc.
[1] ok, we know what they're going for - the Euros in our wallets... .