Category Archives: NEW CARS

NEW CARS

Next-Gen Citroën C4 Promises Radical Design and a Rebellion Against Boring Hatchbacks

Citroën has never been very good at blending in, and it doesn’t plan to start now. As the current C4 edges into retirement—six years old and counting, making it the oldest car in the brand’s lineup—Citroën is preparing a replacement that, in the words of its own design chief, “has to look very different.” Translation: the next C4 is about to get strange in a very French way.

That’s refreshing news in a C-segment world dominated by safe, conservative hatchbacks that look like they were designed by a committee armed with spreadsheets. Citroën, on the other hand, is aiming for something more radical. Design boss Pierre Leclercq says the fourth-generation C4 will be “highly bespoke,” deliberately separating itself from everything else in the brand’s lineup—which, outside of the tiny Ami, has quietly turned into a sea of crossovers.

In other words, the next C4 won’t just be a shrunk C5 or a stretched C3. It won’t adopt the chunky, box-on-wheels vibe of Citroën’s newer crossovers either. It will stay a hatchback—and a defiant one at that.

Cheap Bones, Expensive Attitude

Under the skin, the next C4 could take a very different path from its Stellantis cousins. The current model rides on the CMP platform, shared with cars like the Peugeot 208 and Opel Corsa. But Citroën is reportedly considering switching to the more cost-focused “Smart Car” architecture that underpins the new C3 and C3 Aircross.

That might sound like a downgrade, but Citroën sees it as an opportunity: lower production costs mean a lower sticker price, which frees the brand to spend its capital on what it really cares about—style and character.

That’s classic Citroën. Historically, this is the company that gave us hydropneumatic suspensions, single-spoke steering wheels, and dashboard layouts that looked like sci-fi props. Even now, Leclercq insists experimentation should be central to the brand’s role within Stellantis.

“Citroën has always been a bit experimental, and should be the experimental brand of the group,” he said—and he means it.

Bold Enough to Be Polarizing

Citroën CEO Xavier Chardon is just as blunt. The brand, he says, doesn’t want to be “generic” like Volkswagen or Toyota. It wants to take risks—even if that means not everyone will love the result.

“I’m not afraid if people hate our design,” he said. “But I don’t want anybody to think our design is mainstream.”

That’s a gutsy thing to say in a market where customer clinics and focus groups often sand off every sharp edge. But it’s also exactly the kind of attitude that could make the C4 interesting again. The outgoing model tried to straddle the line between hatchback and crossover, which left it a bit confused. The new one, by contrast, sounds like it will pick a lane—and then swerve creatively within it.

A Hatchback with a Point of View

What we shouldn’t expect is a cookie-cutter shape. Leclercq has already ruled out a boxy, two-volume crossover profile. The next C4 will remain a hatchback, but one driven by “new concepts” rather than a simple replacement brief.

That suggests we might get something genuinely different in a segment that desperately needs it. While rivals fight over who has the sharpest LED headlights or the most aggressive fake vents, Citroën is trying to answer a more interesting question: what if a compact hatchback didn’t have to look like everyone else’s idea of a compact hatchback?

If Citroën pulls this off—combining low prices with bold design—it could give the C-segment something it hasn’t had in years: personality. And honestly, in a world of painfully sensible cars, a little weird might be exactly what we’re missing.

Source: Autocar

NEW CARS

Capricorn 01 Zagato: The 900-HP Yellow Comet That Thinks It’s a Race Car

By the time most boutique hypercars have finished their first digital render, the Capricorn 01 Zagato has already built three working prototypes and shipped one of them across Europe. The latest version landed at the Retromobile show in Paris just months after the car’s first public appearance in Belgium, making one thing very clear: this isn’t a vaporware fantasy—it’s a functioning, fire-breathing machine.

The first Capricorn 01 appeared in classy Verde Knokke green over brown leather, a look that nodded politely toward Italian grand-tourer tradition. The Paris car, however, throws subtlety out the window. Finished in a vivid Giallo Sole yellow with blue suede inside, it looks less like a vintage Zagato tribute and more like something that escaped from a modern Le Mans paddock.

And that’s exactly the point.

Capricorn describes both versions as “engineering-driven vehicles,” which sounds like marketing fluff until you realize that they’re fully operational prototypes, not static show cars. Even more impressive, a third example is already being assembled at the company’s facility in Mönchengladbach, Germany. This is a startup acting like a serious manufacturer.

The Zagato influence is unmistakable. The trademark double-bubble roof arches over the cockpit, while almond-shaped headlights peer out from an aggressively sculpted nose. The body is packed with race-bred aerodynamic elements, including flying rear struts that recall the Ford GT, gullwing doors, a deeply channeled hood with twin exhaust outlets, and a full-width light bar across the rear. It looks dramatic because it is.

Inside, the Capricorn 01 rejects modern touchscreen minimalism in favor of something far more tactile. There’s a cluster of matching analog dials, a visible open-gate manual shifter, and a round steering wheel fitted with rotary controls. Blue suede, exposed carbon fiber, and modern racing buckets complete a cockpit that feels more like a homologation special than a luxury hypercar.

But the real story sits behind the seats.

The Capricorn 01 is built around a carbon-fiber monocoque and powered by a mid-mounted, supercharged 5.2-liter V8 sourced from Ford and heavily reworked. Output is claimed to exceed 900 metric horsepower and 1,000 Nm of torque—numbers that put it firmly in the upper reaches of the hypercar world.

That power goes only to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission, which feels almost rebellious in a segment obsessed with dual-clutch gearboxes and all-wheel drive. With a curb weight under 1,200 kilograms, Capricorn claims a 0–100 km/h time under three seconds and a top speed of 360 km/h. Whether those figures survive independent testing remains to be seen, but the power-to-weight ratio suggests they’re not fantasy.

The first customer cars are scheduled for delivery later this year, and Capricorn says only a “minimum number” of the planned 19 units are still available, each priced at €2.95 million. That puts the 01 Zagato directly in the crosshairs of Ferrari, McLaren, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, and Pagani—names that usually don’t lose sleep over newcomers.

But Capricorn isn’t exactly new to the business of going fast. The company has supplied lightweight components to Porsche’s LMP1 program, Peugeot Sport’s Le Mans and Dakar racers, Mercedes, Lotus, and Caterham in Formula 1, and Volkswagen’s WRC effort. This may be their first road car, but they’ve been quietly shaping the racing world for years.

The Capricorn 01 Zagato doesn’t feel like a startup’s hopeful first step. It feels like a company finally deciding to put its name on something wild. And if the prototypes are any indication, the hypercar establishment just got a bright yellow new problem.

Source: Zagato

NEW CARS

The Next BMW 5-Series Refresh Won’t Go Full Neue Klasse

BMW is already deep into development of a mid-cycle refresh for the current G60-generation 5-Series, but if the latest camouflaged prototypes are telling the truth, anyone expecting a full Neue Klasse makeover might want to temper their expectations. Instead of a radical reinvention, the 2027 5-Series appears to be heading for something far more conservative—a design tweak rather than a design reset.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The current 5-Series is only a couple of years old, and while its styling didn’t exactly light the internet on fire, it hasn’t aged poorly either. What BMW seems to be planning is a light visual refresh designed to keep the car competitive without stepping on the toes of the all-new Neue Klasse models that will follow later in the decade.

Until BMW starts pulling camouflage off its test mules, we’re left reading tea leaves. But digital artists have already filled in the blanks. And the results range from cautious to borderline sci-fi.

One of the more realistic takes comes from Nikita Chuyko, whose rendering imagines a refreshed M5 Touring that doesn’t stray far from today’s shape—but sharpens it up in key areas. The biggest change is up front, where the current split-headlamp arrangement is replaced by narrower, simpler LED units. They’re cleaner and more modern, though arguably a bit less expressive than the existing setup.

The kidney grilles also get toned down. They’re still unmistakably BMW, but smaller and less dominant, trading shock value for something closer to elegance. For fans who still haven’t warmed up to BMW’s recent grille phase, that alone might count as a win.

There’s also a redesigned front bumper, revised side intakes, and lightly reshaped front fenders—enough to make the facelift obvious to enthusiasts without forcing BMW to reinvent the sheet metal.

Chuyko also explored a more aggressive direction for Kolesa, previewing what an M5 could look like if BMW leans harder into its Neue Klasse design language. Inspired by the 2023 Vision Neue Klasse sedan concept, one version features a full-width horizontal panel stretching across the nose, with the headlights integrated into either end. It’s a modernized callback to classic BMWs like the E30 3-Series and E24 6-Series—and, frankly, one of the more tasteful faces BMW has previewed in years.

Another version keeps the Neue Klasse headlamps but reintroduces a compact double-kidney grille, blending the future with BMW’s traditional front-end layout. It’s the kind of compromise we wouldn’t be surprised to see BMW adopt in the real world.

Inside, things are murkier. BMW’s new Panoramic iDrive system, which debuts on the iX3, is almost certainly coming to future models—but given how restrained the exterior refresh looks, a full interior overhaul seems unlikely for this mid-cycle update. Expect software updates and subtle interface changes rather than a dashboard revolution.

Under the hood, though, the stakes are much higher.

The current M5 uses BMW’s S68 twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 paired with an electric motor and an eight-speed automatic, forming a plug-in hybrid system that delivers a formidable 717 horsepower. But Europe’s looming Euro 7 emissions rules forced BMW to cut the V8’s output from 577 hp to 537 hp on EU-spec cars. BMW made up the difference by boosting the electric motor, keeping the system total the same—but the V8 itself took a hit.

The facelift could give BMW an opportunity to claw that power back. If the company restores the V8’s original output while keeping the revised electric motor, the M5’s total system power could climb even higher. Given the ongoing horsepower war in this segment, don’t be surprised if BMW takes that route.

Timing-wise, the refreshed 5-Series is expected to debut later this year, hitting showrooms as a 2027 model. The M5 sedan and M5 Touring should follow not long after, likely arriving for the 2028 model year.

In other words, don’t expect a design revolution—but do expect BMW to quietly sharpen its most important luxury sedan, making sure the 5-Series stays fresh while the brand’s Neue Klasse future waits in the wings.

Source: Kelsonik