Following round after round of teasers and test sessions, Citroën gave us our best look yet at its next rally car when it revealed the new C3 WRC Concept online last week. And now it’s unveiled it in the metal on the floor of the Paris Motor Show.
Why should we care, you ask? Because this could very well, with few changes, be the car that comes to dominate the next era of the World Rally Championship. After all, Citroën locked out all rivals for nearly a decade running until 2013. That’s when it lost its focus, diverting its attention to the touring cars while trying to maintain its edge on the rally scene. It paid off with three back-to-back World Touring Car Championships, but cost the team its top spot in the WRC to Volkswagen.
Now Citroën is shutting down its WTCC program and focusing all its attention on the WRC again. And if the modern history of rallying has shown us anything, it’s that when Citroën put their mind to it, nobody else can even keep up.
Now, there’s a new set of regulations that will even the playing field next season, so not only is Citroën starting afresh, but so are VW, Toyota, Hyundai, and Ford’s affiliate M-Sport. The French team will have to go through all of them – each as hungry for victory as the next – to reclaim its place at the top of the podium where the DS3, C4, and Xsara lived before it.
This time it doesn’t have the talents of Sebastien Loeb to call on. But on the surface at least, the C3 WRC concept certainly looks the business. Check it out in the fresh crop of live images from the floor of the Port de Versailles exhibition center to see what the Chevron marque has in store.
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