Citroen is saying goodbye to the last passenger car monocab. The Citroen Grand C4 SpaceTourer is no longer available for order in Europe, and production at the plant in Spain will stop in July, when all orders already placed have been completed. The company does not hide the fact that minivans have lost the market fight to crossovers, so the preference is given to the latter.
The history of monocabs of the French brand has 28 years, during which almost 4.5 million minivans, compact vans and microvans were produced. The firstborn in 1994 was Citroen Evasion, created in collaboration with Fiat and had twins under the brands Peugeot, Fiat and Lancia. For eight years, Evasion sold 120 thousand cars, and the minivan that replaced it Citroen C8 from 2002 to 2014 found 150 thousand buyers. The “tse-eighth” did not have a direct heir.
Compact van became a real hit Citroen Xsara Picasso: from 1998 to 2012, 1.76 million cars were produced! next model Citroen C4 Picasso the first generation (including an extended version of the Grand C4 Picasso) from 2006 to 2013 found 891,000 buyers. Just in 2007, the company’s single-volume sales peaked: all Picassos, taken together, then found 330,000 buyers!
In 2009-2019, there was a microvan on the market Citroen C3 Picasso (658 thousand pieces), which was replaced by a SUV similar in size C3 Aircross. And in 2013, the Citroen C4 Picasso / Grand C4 Picasso family debuted second generationwhich after modernization in 2018 lost sonorous name: then the cars were given the names Citroen C4 SpaceTourer and Citroen Grand C4 SpaceTourer. The short five-seater version was discontinued back in 2020, and now it’s the turn of the long Grand version. To date, 732 thousand cars of the second generation have been produced, of which 352 thousand are Grand versions. Back in 2017, sales of the Picasso family in Europe fell below the mark of 100 thousand cars, and the result of 2021 is only 17 thousand cars. The C4 SpaceTourer family left the Russian market back in 2019.
Citroen Grand C4 SpaceTourer
After the departure of the Grand C4 SpaceTourer model, Citroen will only have passenger versions of commercial models in this segment – these are Berlingo heels and SpaceTourer minibuses. The plant of the Stellantis concern in Vigo, Spain, where the Grand C4 SpaceTourer is still being produced, will not be left without work: Peugeot 2008 SUVs and the entire wide family of “heels” under the brands Citroen, Peugeot, Opel, Vauxhall and Toyota are also made there.