Autoblog

Click either image for a high-res gallery of the Citroen Hypnos concept

Someone over at Citroen has been hitting the absinthe. Well, why not, because Citroen is celebrating its birthday and had the semi-annual Paris auto salon in town to coincide. We'd say they should have stuck with the champagne, but we kinda like this car. Called the Hypnos, it's all business on the outside, and all trippy on the inside.

The exterior looks something like a darker, more versatile version of the GT concept developed by the same company. The interior is something else altogether, and is likely to seem familiar only to those who have gone diving in coral reefs or spent some time in Amsterdam. (If anyone's asking, we fall into the former.) Power is provided by the the HYmotion4 hybrid diesel powertrain PSA rolled out on several show cars, including sister-company Peugeot's Prologue and RC HYmotion4 concepts, which gives the Hypnos green credentials to go with the hippie-inspired design theme. Of course, this falls squarely in the design study category of concept cars (as opposed to the production preview sort), but if this is an indication of where Citroen is headed, overseas customers could be in for a wild ride. Follow the jump for the press release and check out the images in the gallery below.

There are a lot of big birthdays in the car industry this year, and the Citroen 2CV joins GM and Land Rover in the candle-blowing crowd. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the deux-say-vay, Hermes created a special version of a 1989 Citroen 2CV6 Special for the Paris Auto Show. If you saw the Bugatti Veryon by Hermes you know what to expect, with hand-stitched swathes of Hermes trademark gray-beige leather contrasted with white on the front and rear benches. Of course the Hermes treatment is worth as much as the car itself, but anything the 2CV lacks in luxury is more than made up for by character. Check out the press release after the jump and the gallery of high-res photos below.

Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is about to get a pretty substantial upgrade. The next time you boot up your Playstation 3, an update will be available for GT5 that will add the GT by Citroen, Ferrari's new California and the Lotus Evora. Lotus fans got a sneak peek into the Evora's GT5 inclusion at the British Motor Show a few weeks back, and now everybody gets to join in on the aluminum-intensive fun. It's always a pleasure to strap yourself in a Ferrari, in real-life or virtually, and the California is the latest Italian Stallion around, so its addition was a foregone conclusion. The biggest news, though, is the new French GT, which its maker says was "a partnership between Citroën and Polyphony." In the game-realm, the new GT concept will be powered by electrons generated from a hydrogen fuel cell. Even if the technology isn't quite ready for prime time in your driveway, it can always make waves in digital form, running around various race tracks while emitting nothing but water.


[Source: PlayStation Blog via Joystiq]

The day is here, the GTbyCitroen has got over its shyness and is ready to be seen by the world. Par for the French, the GT is funky -- and we're not even going to get into the seventh teaser for the car in which the car was completely covered. Contrary to the rakishness of its looks, it's also fairly slow. The 3,000-pound two-seater takes a virtual 3.6 seconds to get to a virtual 62 mph, and that's with a 646 digital ponies boosted by an additional 136 hydrogen-powered horses. As for the design, if you're wondering what that rear overhang is about, the phrase you're looking for is "retinal persistence." Yeah. You can find more explanations like that and a whole lot more in the press release after the jump, and the gallery of high-res photos below.

In a move more "Um, yeah..." than "Oh yeah!", Citroen has released the sixth teaser image of the car that will, one of these days, be revealed entirely to the world, all at once, front and back. We aren't even sure if this qualifies as a tease, since getting a glimpse at a front end we've already seen doesn't really ring the bell. What we can say is that one of our commenters appears to be right: the car does look like it's only 10 inches high. Relive the magic of the slowest reveal ever in the gallery of high-res photos below.


[Source: 4 Wheels News]

Citroen has let slip another drip in the GT by Citroen reveal, and this time it's a video showing off the dramatic shapes of "The Drive of Your Life." Dig those mirrors, and the glasshouse swept back in monumental fashion. Whatever is pushing the car's massive rims apparently needs a lot of air, with two raked scoops behind the canopy and two more on the sides ahead of the rear wheels. And the rear end of the car looks like -- dare we say it -- a tail... It's Mach 5 if the car comes together like we expect, or platypus if it doesn't. The Paris Motor Show reveal is in but a few days, and you can mark us down as officially excited. Check out the video after the jump and more teaser pics in the gallery below. Thanks for the tip, Nick!


[Source: Gran Turismo]

It's time for your next dose of the GT by Citroen concept. To the commenter who wrote that the front of the car looks like a catfish -- well, in a victory for symmetry, the back of the car looks like a catfish, too, and a couple of other gilled sea creatures. No matter its fishy similarities, it also look like it will be a lot of fun to throw this baby around Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The tease can't go on much longer -- the Paris Motor Show begins in a week. We'll be there with cameras and bait, just in case.


[Source: Zer Customs]

The cloak on the GT by Citroen has been pulled back again to reveal a little more sheetmetal. Call us crazy, but we have the feeling this car is going to put the "Whoa, that's wild..." back into concept cars. This little corner shows off two vastly different personalities: look at the center structure and it could be any pleasant Frenchmobile -- a 2CV even; scan out to the sides, and it's got the kind of vicious appendages of a predator. Then there's that diffuser hanging out there like an arctic steppe, mirrors that are 18 inches long, and a tapered rear end that can't possibly stay planted without some aero aid on scaffolding. For all we know, the car could be hiding nine or ten other personalities, as well. We can't wait to see it.


[Source: ZerCustoms]

Day three in the Citroen Gran Turismo car reveal, and this time we do have the front of the car again. We thought the second pic was the front as well, but apparently that's not the case. The tiny bit front overhang on the car is taken up entirely by intakes and a dual element splitter that looks large enough to double as a hydrofoil. Combined with the leviathan rear diffuser, massive tires, and minimal ride height, the car looks like a straight up racer as opposed to a GT... but if you'll notice, there's a space on the front bumper for a European license plate. All we can say is come on, Paris Motor Show.


[Source: ZerCustoms]

The Citroen GT striptease continues with a more revealing image of what looks like a rip-snorting concept car. Huge tires, a ginormous front splitter meant to keep something seriously fast bolted to the ground at speed, enough front air intakes to break records, and that thing out back, which we thought were mirrors yesterday, must be a terrific wing. As they say in French, oh la la, c'est cool. Meant to appear in Gran Turismo Prologue, it will also be at next month's Paris Motor Show, and so will we, so stay tuned. In the mean time, you can check out both high-res images in the gallery below.


[Source: ZerCustoms]