Most French concept cars are just sort of, well, weird. They have odd shapes, or unusual features, or silly names. They’re French. But the Citroen Aircross Concept has a design feature that’s even weirder. Something a bit more... stolen.
You may not notice it at first, as everything on the concept looks pretty Citroen. It’s got crazy angled lights, a passenger window that looks to have an alpine ski binding slapped onto it, and cubbyholes for shoe storage built into the sides for some reason. Like I said, pretty Citroen.
But if we look closer, we see something a bit more Land Rover instead. Actually, a lot more Land Rover. So get in there, and look closer.
No, closlier.
Enhance.
ZOMG IT SAYS LAND ROVER.
Now we’re faced with two questions, one of which is easier to answer than the other. The first is which poor Land Rover is currently sitting up on blocks, abandoned somewhere in a gritty neighborhood on the rougher side of town.
And the answer to that is, clearly, the Land Rover DC100 Concept from a few years back:
The kleptomaniacs over at Citroen at least had the decency to leave the poor Landie its wheels, while still stripping it of its rubber. But why even take the rubber? If we look at the Aircross Concept that’s making the auto show rounds, it’s got new Continental-branded shoes:
Meaning that whoever made the first initial renders of the Aircross liked taking the sneakers off a poor old Defender concept, just for fun.
Monsters.
Either that, or, you know, they just laid the design of the Aircross Concept over a template from a photo of the old DC100. One or the other.
We’ve reached out to Citroen to see what’s up, and we’ll let you know if we hear back.
UPDATE: Citroen was actually pretty nice and cordial about the whole thing:
This is one of the first sketches presented internally early in 2014.
During the study phase a lot of idea and sketches are produced and, for efficiency reasons, designers sometimes use existing components.
In this case, they found inspiration in the 4x4 world with reference to an existing source that is known for its quality.