Concepts, Show Talk Signal PSA on Recovery Trail

PARIS – PSA Peugeot Citroen celebrates being “Back in the Game” after a brush with bankruptcy, rolling out several concept cars at the Paris auto show and revealing good sales news for both its brands.

As for production cars, Peugeot presents the station wagon version of its 308, which is selling well, and the 208 GTi 30th, a hot hatchback that recalls the years in the 1990s when the 205 GTi helped pull Peugeot out of a sales malaise.

In addition, Peugeot presents a real concept car, the Quartz, which could not be produced as is but may portend a new CUV aimed at helping lead the brand upmarket.

Peugeot sales this year are up 12% in Europe, says Maxime Picat, the managing director of the brand. At Citroen, says his counterpart Linda Jackson, sales are up 10% in Europe and 19% in China, which now accounts for a quarter of Citroen’s volume.

Citroen introduces a concept version of its Citroen Cactus using the PSA invention of compressed-air hybrid drive that would achieve 118 mpg (2 L/100 km) fuel economy, as well as a version of the C1. Jackson says the hybrid system will reach the market by the end of the decade.

Yves Bonnefont, managing director-DS brand, presents a German telecom worker to the assembled press as the 500,000th DS customer. Some 300,000 DS buyers came from brands other than Citroen, he says.

“It takes time to create a premium brand,” he says, but he promises to double the range from the current DS3, DS4 and DS5 in the next five years. “We have the means to reach our ambition.”

DS has presented two concept cars recently, the 2012 No.9, and the 2013 Wild Ruby, and here it adds to the list with a bejeweled concept called the Divine.

Bonnefont says DS will concentrate on urban markets and will create DS Stores, a brand-image window, in the world’s largest 200 markets.

Several of those large markets are in North America, but plans to take the brand there are on the back burner for now, he says in a brief interview.

“For now we are focused on the turnaround,” he says, and until PSA reaches the 2018 profitability goals set by CEO Carlos Tavares, DS won’t worry about going to the U.S.

Tavares, the former chief operating officer at Renault, attended all three brand presentations and congratulated the presenters offstage. Frederic Banzet, a Peugeot family member on the supervisory board, tells WardsAuto Tavares is well regarded by the Peugeot family and is happy in his job. He was the second COO of Renault fired by CEO Carlos Ghosn.

The Peugeot family has reduced its ownership in the automaker as part of a refinancing effort that sold major shares to France and Dongfeng, its main partner in China.