► New DS8 planned for 2018
► French media claims
► Links to original DS
Citroen’s DS upmarket brand is planning to go stellar with a new range-topping DS8 being readied for launch in 2018, according to industry reports.
Trade title Automotive News Europe today reports how the DS8 will be launched first in China but will come to Europe too. It’s said to be heavily influenced by 2014’s Divine DS concept car and would be pitched at the Audi A6 and top-end VW Passat set.
Click here to find out how new CEO Carlos Tavares wants to reinvent DS.
A new DS8: what we know
Citroen’s DS division has been doing remarkably well: the DS3 now comfortably outsells its Citroen counterpart, the plain-Jane C3, and the French have spun off DS into a standalone unit. Try spotting a Citroen chevron on the latest 2015 DS5, for instance.
However, ANE reports that sales are slowing down as the product line-up ages: they’ve fallen a fifth to 42,100 in the first five months of 2015, it claims. Hence the need for new products to rekindle interest.
In essence, launching a DS8 would relaunch the French into territory surrendered when the C6 went off sale. Like that model, the DS8 is said to hark back to the original 1955 DS for inspiration.
Expect group underpinnings to make the DS8 feasible; that points to the EMP2 modular platform that powers most large Peugeots and Citroens. Don’t go expecting any hydropneumatic suspension though; as we previously reported, PSA is dropping it on cost grounds.