PSA to re-enter North America with DS brand?

[cawimmer430]

The fact that France is pretty much the only place people seriously still buy PSA cars is telling. The cars suck, the company sucks. The death clock is ticking.

Europe, Asia and South America are the biggest markets for PSA cars. They're also becoming very popular in China.

[12,000 RPM]

The problem is that there's no need or demand for more powerful engines for these cars in Europe or other markets where they are sold. Hardly anyone buys the V6 versions of the Citroen C5 because the 4-cylinders are adequate. There's really no incentive to develop, tune and/or lease a more powerful V6 from another manufacturer.

Volkswagen offers a 3.6 FSI V6 Passat and nobody, literally nobody, buys them. It's pretty much the same deal with all other mainstream brands in Europe.

Europe isn't the US. What you guys do over there is not necessarily relevant to what we do over here. Nobody buys the 3.6 VR6 Passat here either, but the base 1.8T is state of the art.

I agree that PSA needs to offer more powerful and perhaps newer engines for North America.

So then what are you going on about? You just can't help but insult Americans for this fake obsession with horsepower you think we have.

At the same time, from an everyday performance perspective their current engines are more than adequate. I seriously doubt that the average American will think that a 211-horsepower V6 C5 is "underpowered".

There's more to an engine than horsepower and performance. That C5 V6 gets about 23 MPG and does 0-62 in ~9 seconds. A Honda Accord four cylinder gets 29 MPG and does 0-60 in about 7.5 seconds. Why? Because Honda has spent the money to develop their engines for max performance AND efficiency. The competitive and unrestricted nature of the US auto market, as well as our traffic speeds and patterns (and horrible road designs, in many cases) require all these things. PSA will need to develop engines that are in line with American tastes if they want to sell cars here, period. It's no different from Lexus needing to develop better diesels and engines in general for Europe, which you have used to bash Lexus many times before.

[MrH]

Eh, they could always partner with another company for engines.  That's no big deal.  As I recall, the last Mini used a Peugeot engine that was also shared with another car.  Car companies seem to collaborate a lot these days.

So you're going to take an unheard of French company, buy engines from someone else, build it in Europe, and ship to the US? Going to be impossible to bring that over at a competitive cost.

[Madman]

Volkswagen of America dropped the 3.6 V6 from the B6 Passat in 2009.  Although it came back as an option in the super-sized (and super-cheap) 2012 Chattanooga Passat, hardly anyone buys it.  I've seen way more NMS Passat TDIs than I have V6s.  Ford's new Fusion doesn't offer a V6, either and those cars are EVERYWHERE here.  There's no V6 offered in the Hyundai Sonata and the Kia Optima, either and that doesn't seem to be hurting sales of those cars one bit.

The point is, most Americans now understand you don't need six cylinders to make sufficient progress, just like when consumers a generation ago discovered you didn't need eight.

Engines will be the least of PSA's problems when (and if) they bring DS to these shores.  Establishing a new, unknown brand in a fiercely competitive market will be just the beginning.  Then there's the monumental cost of setting up a dealer and distribution network.  That was something Peugeot really struggled with throughout their American misadventure.

Peugeot had 151 dealers in the US when they pulled the plug here in 1991, mostly in major market cities.  And that simply wasn't enough.  When my local Peugeot dealer finally shut down, I had to take my cars to a dealer 200 miles away just to find a competent mechanic who could work on the thing.  Plus, in a lot of places, Peugeot tried selling cars through large domestic dealerships.  Somehow, they talked a lot of Chevy dealers into selling Peugeots on the side.  You can imagine how well that went.

So, can PSA learn from their past mistakes?  Can they establish not only enough dealers to adequately cover the country but also make sure they're the right kind of dealers, too?  That, along with educating the consumer as to what the hell a DS is, will be the biggest obstacle for the brand in America.

[Eye of the Tiger]

What the hell is a DS?

[Raza]

So you're going to take an unheard of French company, buy engines from someone else, build it in Europe, and ship to the US? Going to be impossible to bring that over at a competitive cost.

Unheard of? Is Peugeot a new company?

[2o6]

The problem is that there's no need or demand for more powerful engines for these cars in Europe or other markets where they are sold. Hardly anyone buys the V6 versions of the Citroen C5 because the 4-cylinders are adequate. There's really no incentive to develop, tune and/or lease a more powerful V6 from another manufacturer.

Volkswagen offers a 3.6 FSI V6 Passat and nobody, literally nobody, buys them. It's pretty much the same deal with all other mainstream brands in Europe.

I agree that PSA needs to offer more powerful and perhaps newer engines for North America. At the same time, from an everyday performance perspective their current engines are more than adequate. I seriously doubt that the average American will think that a 211-horsepower V6 C5 is "underpowered".

Quit saying "Underpowered" because that's not the arguement.


VAG has plenty of refined, technologically advanced engines larger than 2.0L that are competitive with American and Japanese offerings.


PSA has an old as shit V6 that doesn't produce much HP or get very good economy. 211HP from a 3.0L V6 is pathetic; Ford's 1.5T is making ~190 from literally 1/2 the engine. And gets oodles more MPG. This isn't about power. This is about offering a competitive engine.

[MrH]

Unheard of? Is Peugeot a new company?

To the American car buying public? Yeah, pretty much.

[MX793]

To the American car buying public? Yeah, pretty much.

Outside of car enthusiasts, I'd wager most Americans under 30 wouldn't know what a Peugeot is.  They stopped selling them here over 20 years ago and they were selling less than 5K units a year in their final years, so not exactly something you'd see every day even a few years after they left the US market.

[CALL_911]

And even when they did sell them here, they obviously weren't good enough for anyone to give a shit about them. I don't know about this move...

[CALL_911]

Actually, idk why I said that. This move would be a hilarious failure.

[68_427]

I would love to see these things on the road.  Their DS brand vehicles are striking.

[Yawn]

Outside of car enthusiasts, I'd wager most Americans under 30 wouldn't know what a Peugeot is.  They stopped selling them here over 20 years ago and they were selling less than 5K units a year in their final years, so not exactly something you'd see every day even a few years after they left the US market.

Isnt that what FIAT was as well?

[Mustangfan2003]

Mini was out of the market long but the problem is they don't currently have a cool retro looking car.  A bit of a shame I would like to see some more makers in this market. 

[12,000 RPM]

Mini was out of the market long but the problem is they don't currently have a cool retro looking car.  A bit of a shame I would like to see some more makers in this market.

A Citroen New DS would be fucking SICK

The market would bust nuts. There are a lot of people sick of tired of driving generic cookie cutter cars.

[2o6]

A Citroen New DS would be fucking SICK

The market would bust nuts. There are a lot of people sick of tired of driving generic cookie cutter cars.

That's what the damn DS line is....

[12,000 RPM]

That's what the damn DS line is....

These little French dodgeballs are not worthy of carrying the DS' lineage. They look OK for mainstreamers, but Citroen, and more importantly the DS, were all about mind blowing engineering relevant to the markets' needs. So that these cars are average in their home market, as well as completely unimaginative and run of the mill engineering wise, makes Citroen trying to push them out under the DS name that much more ironic.

Like I said Peugeot buying Citroen was probably the worst thing to happen to them. They've been dying a slow death ever since. If they want to succeed and make cars worthy of the Citroen/DS name they need to hit it out of the park with drama AND hardware. They don't have the talent or resources, unfortunately, and if they bring the cars as is to the US they will fail.

[Raza]

Outside of car enthusiasts, I'd wager most Americans under 30 wouldn't know what a Peugeot is.  They stopped selling them here over 20 years ago and they were selling less than 5K units a year in their final years, so not exactly something you'd see every day even a few years after they left the US market.

Didn't Columbo drive one?

[Madman]

Didn't Columbo drive one?

Yes, a Peugeot 403 cabriolet.

In the late '90s, some of my co-workers gave me the nickname "Columbo" due to my two Peugeots.

[2o6]

These little French dodgeballs are not worthy of carrying the DS' lineage. They look OK for mainstreamers, but Citroen, and more importantly the DS, were all about mind blowing engineering relevant to the markets' needs. So that these cars are average in their home market, as well as completely unimaginative and run of the mill engineering wise, makes Citroen trying to push them out under the DS name that much more ironic.

Like I said Peugeot buying Citroen was probably the worst thing to happen to them. They've been dying a slow death ever since. If they want to succeed and make cars worthy of the Citroen/DS name they need to hit it out of the park with drama AND hardware. They don't have the talent or resources, unfortunately, and if they bring the cars as is to the US they will fail.

Now you're just saying shit.


Citroen pushes a lot of design and material boundaries, and the 1.6T they make is probably the most power dense engine they've ever made. (And one of the most power dense 4 cylinders of all time) The ideas and outlook they put in all of their products is pretty radical compared to everyone else (C4 cactus, C4 Picasso, DS line of cars).


And Peugeot's purchase saved Citroen from death, and this happened WAY BACK IN 1974. Before PSA, the only interesting car they had was the DS and SM. PSA saved Citroen and brought cars like the CX, BX, XM, Xantia and others.

[280Z Turbo]

The CX was developed before the buyout.

[cawimmer430]

Compared to the conservative and frankly boring mainstream cars that I see here on a daily basis, Citroen cars and their designs do STAND OUT.

I'd even wager that this is true for non-automotive enthusiasts: they'll notice that a Citroen DS3 looks sharper and stylish compared to a Skoda Fabia or Volkswagen Polo/Golf etc., not to mention the extremely boring Korean or Japanese competition (with the exception of Mazda, which makes stylish cars at the moment).

[12,000 RPM]

Now you're just saying shit.


Citroen pushes a lot of design and material boundaries, and the 1.6T they make is probably the most power dense engine they've ever made. (And one of the most power dense 4 cylinders of all time) The ideas and outlook they put in all of their products is pretty radical compared to everyone else (C4 cactus, C4 Picasso, DS line of cars).


And Peugeot's purchase saved Citroen from death, and this happened WAY BACK IN 1974. Before PSA, the only interesting car they had was the DS and SM. PSA saved Citroen and brought cars like the CX, BX, XM, Xantia and others.

The BX was not that good. CX was OK. XM was a victim of the increasing lack of resources I'm talking about. The cars now might have funky designs but they are pretty low tech compared to 30-40 year old Citroens. Citroen needs to bring back shit like Hydramatic and other techs like active aero etc... and they have to WORK.... to really come back strong IMO. An almost-luxury French brand just sounds like failure.

[cawimmer430]

Citroen needs to bring back shit like Hydramatic and other techs like active aero etc... and they have to WORK.

They offer it on their top-of-the-line C5 models.

And it works. The C5 is common as a taxi in Germany. In a recent general Autobild taxi reliability survey, the C5 fared pretty well earning excellent marks for reliability. The hydropneumatic suspension is pretty solid by most accounts and it needs serious servicing and parts replacements every 200,000 km.

[2o6]

The BX was not that good. CX was OK. XM was a victim of the increasing lack of resources I'm talking about. The cars now might have funky designs but they are pretty low tech compared to 30-40 year old Citroens. Citroen needs to bring back shit like Hydramatic and other techs like active aero etc... and they have to WORK.... to really come back strong IMO. An almost-luxury French brand just sounds like failure.

WTF are you talking about? The BX, CX and XM are all classic Citroens that have great reputation and all three use Hydropnumatic suspension....the XM is held in high regard as a competitor to the 5-series and E-class of the day.


Citroen has a very strong focus on Industrial Design these days, the C4 Cactus is a very radical concept on how we interpret the family car.

[Mustangfan2003]

These little French dodgeballs are not worthy of carrying the DS' lineage. They look OK for mainstreamers, but Citroen, and more importantly the DS, were all about mind blowing engineering relevant to the markets' needs. So that these cars are average in their home market, as well as completely unimaginative and run of the mill engineering wise, makes Citroen trying to push them out under the DS name that much more ironic.

Like I said Peugeot buying Citroen was probably the worst thing to happen to them. They've been dying a slow death ever since. If they want to succeed and make cars worthy of the Citroen/DS name they need to hit it out of the park with drama AND hardware. They don't have the talent or resources, unfortunately, and if they bring the cars as is to the US they will fail.

Something like the old DS would be interesting but I'm still not sure who would buy it, former Saab owners maybe since it's an odd and quirky car? 

[Madman]

There are more rumblings about PSA Peugeot-Citroën's upscale DS brand coming to North America.

PSA sources claim a move into the U.S. market is "necessary" and that it would likely happen within the next few years.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/french-flier-citroens-ds-brand-more-likely-for-u-s-than-ever/

[12,000 RPM]

There are more rumblings about PSA Peugeot-Citroën's upscale DS brand coming to North America.

PSA sources claim a move into the U.S. market is "necessary" and that it would likely happen within the next few years.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/french-flier-citroens-ds-brand-more-likely-for-u-s-than-ever/

Looks like their death sentence is all but signed and sealed then

[2o6]

Looks like their death sentence is all but signed and sealed then

I think it could work.

[280Z Turbo]

We will chew them up and spit them out.