1. A really short rear overhang is a Citroen tradition, here carried to an extreme. The rear fender form rises to the roof.
2. Yes, the rear door cut is actually behind the rear axle. The doors move rearward and up toward vertical for easy entrance.
3. The sharp crease on the front door moves up into the B-pillar area, a dramatic line repeated on the sill below the doors.
4. A true stylistic innovation on the C-Metisse is the head-clearance bump at the back of the roof for rear-seat passengers.
5. The decorative element below the doors is basically a tubular section cutaway to make an air scoop for the rear-wheel electric motors. The same theme gives air outlets below rear bumper.
6. Despite being almost a slit window, the backlight allows a good view through the central rearview mirror. In any case, rearward visibility has never been a major concern at Citroen.
7. Prognathous front end has a relatively short overhang, but still more than the rear. The four large holes in the front end are not particularly graceful, but they're presumably needed to cool the combustion engine and multiple electronic elements.
8. The low front is good for aerodynamics, and the hydropneumatic suspension allows it to be raised for ramps and steep driveways.
9. The instrument cluster has a real science-fiction feel. A spiral penetrates the deep tunnels, lighting up to provide readout information. Their placement in front of the driver is ideal.
10. Thin-shell seating surfaces continue into the inner door panels for an organic look when the doors are closed. They're extremely comfortable, which is good--they can't be any thicker because of the car's low roof.
11. The support structure for the front seats is a bit over the top, with what seem to be shock absorbers leading forward to the seats' shells.
12. For the driver only, the headrest is mounted to the roof. The stark black and white color scheme offsets very complex interior shapes and details.
After a long, miserable period when Citron designers were forced to use Peugeot body shells, scrimp on interiors, and bow to the unqualified tastes of a design-ignorant CEO for models with unique skins such as the awkward and ugly C5, the company has come back to life with nonconformist styling applied to platforms shared with Peugeot. Now that the design team has the bit in its teeth, great things are happening. The C-Mtisse concept car shown in Paris last fall is a bold statement of future intention, even if it has little to do with production plans. Believe it, no manufacturing engineer would countenance the four-doors-moving-in-multiple-directions idea proposed in this chopped-top coupe/sedan. But for a show car, they look great and work very well for access into a radical cabin.
The four-door coupe idea-very successful in the Mercedes-Benz CLS and being brought to market soon by Aston Martin, BMW, and Porsche-has been pushed to its limits in this extremely low and wide but perfectly habitable concept. It is a big vehicle on a 118-inch wheelbase, but even with its hybrid propulsion with electric motors in the rear wheels, the C-Mtisse weighs only 3087 pounds, (less than a Chevrolet Corvette Z06), thanks to the elaborate carbon-fiber body-chassis structure that was developed in-house. The engine is the 201-hp Ford-PSA diesel V-6 equipped with a particulate filter for clean emissions, and it's backed by two 20-hp electric motors that can move the car in zero-emissions mode for 1.9 miles at 19 mph and boost acceleration when needed.
The car's interior is even more interesting than its dramatic body shape, which reverts to the long-hood/ short-deck proportions of rear-wheel-drive cars with in-line engines from the classic period. The overhead console looks a lot like a modern razor, with the mirror glass as the blade, while the central tunnel that houses the batteries is topped with exotic, machined-metal controls for the driver. The steering-wheel hub is fixed, as in the production Citron C4, with two iDrive-like knobs to take care of multiple secondary control functions. Rarely has a real physical cabin so closely resembled an imaginative sketch.
Many past Citrons adopted styling from other cars-the Traction Avant was based on the British Ford Model Y, the DS on Studebaker's 1953 lineup, the CX on a Pininfarina-designed British Motor Company concept car-but the C-Mtisse is as startling and truly original as was the 1970s Citron SM coupe. The work of Gilles Vidal's advanced design team, the C-Mtisse is exciting both visually and technically. The windshield is raked to a near-impossible degree, the roof is so low that it needs innovative bumps over the heads of the (very comfortably installed) passengers in the back seats, and the whole is-one hopes-an inspiration for future Citrons that people will be able to buy and enjoy.