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Citroen C4 Cactus to get the axe – report

The quirky Citroen C4 Cactus has won many fans globally with its polarising design and funky personalisation options.   


However, it looks like the French carmaker won’t be renewing it for another generation.

Speaking with the UK’s Top Gear, Citroen’s product boss, Xavier Peugeot, said: “For the time being this car is our C-segment hatch offer. Our next C-segment car to come will replace the C4 Cactus. This will be the end of the Cactus. For the name, I don’t know yet, but for the car, yes”.

”I joined Citroen a few months after the launch of the first C4 Cactus. It is a tremendous project, as it is in line with the Citroen values of demonstrating boldness and innovation and trying to consider cars in a different way.”

“What we tried to do for the mid-life update of the car is keep this spirit alive, but to make it even more involved inside the range,” he added.

Despite the impending retirement of the C4 Cactus, Peugeot stressed to the publication that the model’s replacement won’t be a watered down hatchback with no personality.

“We have made some choices which will definitely remain coherent with what Citroen stands for, the capacity to dare, the capacity to push the standards further than others do. To make cars which are not classical,” he said.

“Citroens have never been ‘the consensus way’; you have to generate this level of polarisation, to make things differently, to create some ‘what have they created again?’ stories. That’s what makes a successful Citroen.”

Australia never got the facelifted model in 2017, and the local arm has indicated there’s no immediate plans to introduce the updated version in the future, despite initially being earmarked for a late 2018 launch here.

Peugeot Citroen Australia’s managing director, Ben Farlow, recently told media at the local launch for the C3 Aircross: “I don't see a long-term future for the C4 Cactus in Australia”, though he added “no firm decisions have been made”.

Instead, the company’s local division has committed to the C3 Aircross and C5 Aircross SUVs, along with the entry-level C3 hatchback.

Sales for the French brand are up 11.8 per cent year-to-date to the end of May, albeit off a low base. Citroen has recorded 170 sales as of 30 May 2019, an increase of 36.6 per cent on the same period last year,

Last month the company registered 56 vehicles, up from 41 units on the same month in 2018.

It appears the surge in May sales came from a new shipment of C4 Cactus models, likely to be one of the last batches of the ageing pre-facelift model that’s been on sale in Australia since 2015.

 

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