By
EWAN KENNEDY
29 May 2006
Right on the heels of a price cut on the Peugeot 206 comes news from
Citroen that it is doing the same thing. It looks as though there's a
war on between the two big French car marques. And whenever there's a
price war between makers there's a sure winner – the buyers.
Citroen has announced that is has trimmed
the price of its cute C3 hatchback to just $17,990. That’s a handy
saving of $2000 on the entry-level version of a little car with a lot of
French flair. That price buys you a five-door C3 with the smaller engine
option, a 1.4-litre, and a five-speed manual gearbox.
The Citroen C3's big brother called,
without a great deal of imagination the Citroen C4, has also had a $2000
price realignment. Again, it’s only on the entry level model, this
time a three-door coupe. It comes with sensational styling, an interior
like you’ve never seen before, 1.6-litre engine, five-speed manual
gearbox and a price tag of just $23,990.
Finally, the hot little Citroen C2, which
is a truncated version of the C3 but comes with a personality all of its
own. The price realignment is only $1000, bringing it down to $21,990.
It’s priced higher than the C3 because the C2 is only imported to
Australia as the high-performance VTR variant.
A fun machine aimed at the keen driver,
the lightweight Citroen C2 VTR is yet another example of ultra-modern
Citroen styling themes. It’s powered by a 1.6-litre engine so has
plenty of get up and go. Check out the standard sequential manual
gearbox, though, it’s not to all tastes.
Note that on-road costs have to be added
to all of the prices quoted, talk to your dealer as these may vary from
area to area.
There's a slight contradiction in what
Citroen is saying about these price reductions. In the one breath it
tells us that head office in France is giving the Australian importer a
better deal because Australia is consistently selling more cars year on
year. On the other hand the importer says these cuts are for a limited
time only. Seems to us that if the cuts result in more sales then we
should either anticipate further price drops, or at least a maintenance
of the new prices.
Whatever; if you’ve been thinking about
spending the next stage of your automotive life in a stylish French
machine there may never have been a better time.
