While we eagerly await the unveiling of the fourth-generation Citroën C3, with its electric version expected to cost around €25,000 excluding bonuses, we are today presenting the work of a designer on the theme of Citroën’s entry-level saloon.
What we found amusing, intriguing, crazy and offbeat was that this designer, Ken Gan, has reinterpreted in his own way the Citroën Visa (!) born in 1978, 45 years ago! This Citroën will not go down in history as a masterpiece of industrial design. Poor thing, the entire management team got on its back when it came to choosing its design, and the original model suffered as a result, coming out all watered down.
In short, it was a daring move to start from such a non-icon and come up with a thoroughly modern and sympathetic solution to what the Citroën C1, or C2, could be. And for that reason alone, we love this project. Let’s start by saying that Ken Gan is a designer who tends to focus on interior concept research.
In fact, that’s his current job at… Jaguar, which he joined as a trainee in 2020 before graduating in 2022. He is still at Gaydon today and continues to work for the prestigious British brand of the Jaguar Land Rover group, a subsidiary of the Indian car company Tata Motors.
Let’s be honest, what we like most of all is the interior research, mixed with themes already seen on the (official) 19_19 concept car presented in 2019 for the brand’s centenary and designed by Romain Gauvin. This designer has since joined the Dacia design team. The interior of the 19_19 concept was designed by Jérémy Lebonnois and Raphaël le Masson. While Jérémy has stayed with Stellantis, Raphaël has joined Romain Gauvin at Dacia…
On the outside, we can see a desire for simplicity, a volume as tangy as a candy cane and a probable infeasibility of the front windscreen. Which leads us to announce that you will soon be able to read everything you ever wanted to know about automotive glazing, and more particularly, concept car glazing, on the lignesauto.fr website.
On board, Kan Gan has taken the study very far, with different colour and material themes. A real pro’s job. The logo (it was still the old one at the time of this study) is scattered throughout the cabin, particularly on the floor mats.
The modern steering wheel is framed by the satellites so dear to Michel Harmand, inventor of the Citroën CX lunette and the original panel for the ‘real’ Visa. Ken Gan’s work bears some resemblance to the work of the Renault concept car team at the time of the Morphoz project.
This refreshing study certainly doesn’t have the innovative potential of Citroën’s Oli concept car, but Ken Gan was on his own when it came to this slightly mad project to resurrect the Visa. Even she can’t believe it! Well done for this job!
See Ken’s full project on his Behance page:
And here is an interview with the designer of the Citroën 19_19 when he worked for the brand: http://lignesauto.fr/?p=9617
Finally, an interview with the interior designer of the Renault Morphoz concept car: http://lignesauto.fr/?p=16003
