Citroen is conserving a new naming structure to better help distinguish its cars within parent PSA Peugeot-Citroen's line up, Autonews Europe announced on Friday.
Currently, the group's Citroen branding structure has used a dual letter-number naming system. For over the past several years the brand has used the letter "C" followed by a number indicating the level of the cars' size, the larger the number the larger the car.
The brand’s best-seller in Europe, for example, is the C3 subcompact, followed by the C4 compact at No. 2. Variants of core models add a name, such as the C3 Picasso and C4 Picasso minivans, C4 Cactus crossover and C4 Aircross SUV.
Citroen did not disclose details of how its new naming policy might change, or whether it has changed it substantially from the current one. However, French business paper Les Echos first reported that Citroen CEO Linda Jackson did initiate an internal study to examine how a new naming structure would be perceived. It's not known whether the company did this through focus groups or via another method.
A new naming structure could better reflect the brand’s different types of models and further distinguish the company from PSA’s Peugeot and DS brands, Ian Fletcher, an analyst for IHS Automotive told Automotive News Europe.
Citroen's sister brand PSA Peugeot introduced its new car-naming system two years ago. The brand continues to use numbers for its models such as the 308 compact; however, it ended the system where it changed the final digit to indicate new generations.
In the Iranian market PSA Peugeot Citroen announced in 2014 that they would bring its entry-level otherwise known as the emerging markets car 301 to the country. Its local production partner IKCO Group announced that it had agreed with the French auto making group to produce the car in its Iranian factories.
