The Citroen 19_19 Concept is not a Tonka toy. Instead, it's Citroen's idea of how a fully autonomous car meant for cross-country trips will look in the future. Said to be inspired by the aviation world, it features a cabin brimming with tech that's accessible via suicide doors. View it as the big brother of Citroen's Ami One concept that's built for the inner cities with licenseless drivers in mind.

Did you expect a nicer looking concept on Citroen's 100th anniversary? After all, the endless streams of CXs, BXs or SMs should've been carried into the present day and into the future by something, right? Well, look at Citroen's current lineup of cars. Do you see anything even remotely pretty or classy looking? I don't and this autonomous EV sitting on 30-inch wheels is a sign that things won't change. But underneath that GM AUTOnomy-esque body, there's a revised version of Citroen’s Progressive Hydraulic Cushion suspension, a 100kWh battery pack that translates to a near-500-mile range, and a pair of electric motors that combine for a total output of 456 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of twist. We reckon that's enough for the driverless means of transportation of the future but what's more important is what the 19_19 Concept hides behind those four large doors.

2019 Citroen 19_19 Concept

Specifications
  • Make: Array
  • Model: 2019 Citroen 19_19 Concept
  • Horsepower: 456
  • Torque: 590
  • [do not use] Vehicle Model: Array
Pros
Cons

Exterior

- Rides on 30-inch wheels - The headlights are shaped like Citroen's logo - Inspired by the company's helicopter - Inspired by a '30s endurance record car - Wheels and fenders independent of the body - Roof-mounted LIDAR sensors - Semi-transparent doors and other body panels - LED screens in rear doors - Upper light bar extends to form mirrors

Look at this car. What do you see? "I like to think about an egg because there’s nothing so simple," said Citroen's Head of Exterior Design Frédéric Duvernier before adding that "this project cannot be presented without thinking of AMI One they are very complimentary. On the one hand, you have a small economy car; on the other hand, comfort." So this is an egg on wheels with the fenders and wheels actually separated from the body that's supposed to be the long-distance cruiser to the AMI One's city-bound versatility.

For starters, they took a good strong look at Citroen's Wankel-powered chopper produced some four decades ago. What? You didn't know there once was a Citroen-branded helicopter with a rotary in it? Well, Citroen built it to challenge the American Bell 47 two-seater helicopter, but the project barely got off the ground (pun intended). The RE-2 only flew in test flights under a special permit from the French government and no proud Frenchman was ever able to purchase 1,543-pound helicopter since Citroen abandoned rotary engine development around 1976, three years after the RE-2 was first discussed about.

But the bubble-shaped aircraft wasn't the only source of inspiration. The 8CV Rosalie was powered by a 1.4-liter four-pot that sent all of its power to the back wheels through a semi-synchromesh gearbox. The racing car shared the mechanicals of the 8CV for marketing purposes, but the body was streamlined with an elongated, teardrop-shaped tail and seating for just two people.

The car, also known as the 'Rosalie IV,' or 'Rosalie des Records' drove without stopping (other than for fuel and tires, and driver changes) for 133 days and nights until Andre Citroen waved the checkered flag to stop the Petite Rosalie on July 27th, 1933. According to DieselPunks, La Petite Rosalie covered no less than 196,000 or the equivalent of 122,000 laps of the Linas-Monthlery track with its daunting banked corners. With an average speed of 58 mph, the lithe machine broke or established 300 other records besides the distance and resilience record. You have to remember that the team of drivers drove this car come rain or shine for over four months and they did it at a higher average speed than you're allowed to drive today on most urban highways in the U.S.

"When the original DS was displayed in 1955, all the other cars were bricks,” said Duvernier. “The Traction Avant, it just killed the competition, it was 0.78 inches lower than other cars by being a monocoque design. It was a revolution at the time. When we embrace this change to autonomy, we can really repackage everything and us designers can be super creative." I still don't see it though.

In the front, you've got the protruding and very rounded blue wheel wells that are partially covered by the LED bar on top which extends outwards. There's a second LED bar just below it, the two forming a clever chevron shape in the middle of the front fascia while in the corners they form an acute angle pointed towards the inside. These two light bards poke forwards and, below them, there's a recessed black surface adorned with yet another Citroen chevron in a circle. Below the bonus logo, there is what looks like a bumper (since it extends outwards, obviously with the much-needed sensors at either end).

Basically, while riding in this car, you can get a proper tan if you aren't careful. From the side, you'll notice the protruding bar-like element that crosses the front doors and extends midway past the rear doors, where the color changes in tone with the rest of the rear bodywork and there's also a giant Citroen logo positioned in that area for good measure. The car itself has a very low roofline and an angled windshield, but due to the huge wheels, it still looks big and chunky with a ride height that suggests some degree of off-road friendliness from the 19_19 Concept - although that's not the case.

You'll notice on the roof the pair of LIDAR sensors. What is LIDAR? It's "a surveying method that measures the distance to a target by illuminating the target with pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses with a sensor." In other words, it's the 19_19's eyes that tell it what goes on in its immediate vicinity so it can travel in safety. The two sensors look like air vents and are placed on the blue strip that covers the rear doors and the top of the car in that area. Citroen made the wheels so big so that the concept will grip better and, also, because it says the bigger tires are better at decreasing the level of road noise you hear inside.

The back of the car is black with some blue inserts and, again, two LED bars that mimic the design seen in the front. Above the top bar, you can see the 19_19 model name spelled out while below the lower one you can read the Citroen name spelled out. The Citroen name is placed on a rounded bar that gives way to a hallowed area pierced only by a vertical bar with a rain light incorporated.

You can definitely say, just by glancing at this concept for a few seconds, that Citroen's designers are certain that, in the future, accidents will be few and far between since this car lacks the crumple zones present (because they're mandatory) on current vehicles. Also, size-wise, the 19_19 concept is about as long as a Mercedes-Benz C Class sedan but about 16.5 inches wider (mirrors folded). It's also 8.6 inches wider than a modern-day Formula 1 car but also a lot taller.

Citroen 19_19 Concept exterior dimensions

Length:

183.2 inches

Width:

88.2 inches

Height:

63 inches

Wheelbase:

122 inches


Interior

- Floating dashboard - Different seats in the front and back - Made to mimic your living room - Semi-transparent Floor - Blue surfaces on the outside offer privacy - Multiple types of materials used inside - Marble-like resin covers the center console - Voice-operated 'Hello Citroen' system is your partner

“The 19_19 Concept is our technological and innovative vision of the automotive future," said Linda Jackson, the CEO of Citroen, about the concept that will be unveiled at the VivaTech Show in Paris on the 16th of May, 2019. As an autonomous EV, it's no wonder Citroen spent a great deal of time designing the interior of this forward-thinking concept. After all, the day when you'll no longer have to worry about driving (although the 19_19 Concept does feature a retractable steering wheel), the world in the cabin will open to a whole heap of a lot of possibilities. As such, Citroen came up with some rather interesting interior premises with three types of seats: one for the driver, a different, lounge chair-like, one for the passenger, and a bench in the back. Oh, and there's quite a bit of fake marble in there too.

I don't know whose living room the interior designers Raphael Le Masson and Jeremy Lebonnois were thinking about because I'm yet to see one looking like that. If you will, it could be a living room from a modern-day adaptation of The Jetsons if you like stretching it.

The interior is organized following Citroen's own Advanced Comfort program. You'll find all sorts of geometric shapes there, some cool fabrics, polished metals, hard plastics, and that resin that looks like marble which acts both as a center console and an armrest in the back and magazine rack on the pillarless, rear-hinged autoclave doors. The French manufacturer says that the cabin is spacious enough to allow passengers to switch their places mid-way through the journey if they so desire.

Once behind the wheel, which is also covered by that marble-like material, the driver gets all of his information from the windshield via a heads-up display split in two: on the driver's side, you get driving-related information while on the passenger's side you can watch a movie, for instance, or enjoy other augmented reality functions. The recessed dashboard with its crosswise-patterned upholstery is essentially devoided of knobs, buttons, screens, or any kind of dials although there is a vertical pillar - which can slide up and down through the dash - in the middle but it doesn't connect to the center console between the seats. Also, the "borderless glazed area under the dashboard can be transformed into a film projection screen for the pleasure and entertainment of the passengers." That pillar is the device that "hears" you when you talk to the personal assistant that's activated via a simple and familiar "Hello, Citroen."

The passenger's seat is semi-reclined like a deck chair (the French call it a "Chaise Longue" which refers to the way you seat in such a chair).The passenger's chair is unique in that it's upholstered in the same material as the rest of the cabin, but the upholstery is of a greyish-white color and not purple-blue. What's clear is that Citroen, again, doesn't think you'll be involved in a head-on collision in the future.

In the back, there's a bench seat inspired by a sundeck. In a way, this makes sense with so much glassed area above you that's great for sunbathing. There's also no traditional headrests; instead, you get a hammock-style trellis of red elastic fabrics laid out in a chevron shape (of course). You also get some intricate reading lights that come down from the ceiling. That's something you'll need if you actually stuff those magazine racks with magazines or books and you read them on the go.

Drivetrain

- Each tire uses embedded sensors - Tires made out of sponge-like material - 100 kWh battery pack - 456 horsepower and 590 pound-feet output - 497 miles on one charge - 0-62 mph in five seconds, top speed of 124 mph - 380 miles in 20 minutes via fast-charging - All-wheel drive - Suspension uses cameras to ready itself up

"Futuristic and forward-looking yet realistic," is how Citroen describes the drivetrain of the 19_19 Concept. It runs using a pair of electric motors, one on the front axle and one on the back axle for a genuine AWD experience. The two engines combine for an output of 456 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. To put it into perspective, a Tesla Model S P100D puts out 603 horsepower and 713 pound-feet of twist via a three-phase AC induction motor. Granted, that's the most powerful version out there and, with the 'Ludicrous+' mode enabled, it can reach 60 mph from a standstill in 2.5 seconds, impressive for a car that weighs over 5,500 pounds.

This is why the skateboard-like platform rides on the company's updated suspension with progressive hydraulic cushions. This system is already available on some Citroen production models such as the C4 Cactus and C5 Aircross SUV but, in this application, it's been extensively fiddled with to offer a magic carpet-like driving experience. The "system has been designed so that the wheels move relative to the cabin, which remains completely stable and movement-free." Both the suspension and the Goodyear tires scan the road ahead and adapt beforehand to the conditions, be it bumps in the road or certain levels of moisture on the driving surface.

Citroen says it fitted the assistant with something called “Deep meaning understanding,” a "technology provides the fastest voice recognition in the world and perfectly understands natural language, in some 40 languages." I guess it may still need to coax its skills of recognizing accents which always seem to give personal assistants a hard time, but this is to be expected.

Talking about that skateboard platform, it hides a 100 kWh battery pack - again something 'realistic' since you can option a Tesla Model X with such a battery package. But, where a Tesla can go about 372 miles on a charge, the 19_19 Concept can traverse up to 500 miles without needing to stop for sips of electricity. However, once you do stop, it's worth keeping in mind that, via the fast-charging socket you can replenish 380 miles-worth of range in just 20 minutes.

Citroen 19_19 Concept drivetrain specifications

Engine

Dual electric motors

Horsepower

456 horsepower

Torque

590 LB-FT

Range

497 miles

Battery

100 kWh

0-60 mph

5 seconds

Top speed

124 mph

Charging

380 miles of range in 20 minutes through fast-charging


Final Thoughts

I'm a fan of the '60s and '70s Citroens. Not only am I fascinated by the DS's fluid lines penned by Flaminio Bertoni or the edgy cues of Robert Opron's SM and CX, but I'm also a longstanding fan of all the quirkiness those cars hide. From the apparently useless stuff like the single spoke steering wheel to the hydropneumatic suspension, the moveable headlights, and all the other stuff, it's what made Citroen great. Of course, the company's first big hit was Andre Citroen's Traction Avant that almost pushed the company off the cliff as a whole before Michelin saved it from an inevitable financial meltdown.

Citroen still rides high to this day thanks to those very cars, but its most recent products are, to me, lackluster. They don't stand out to the eye, nor to the touch, and nor to the mind (through some genuinely break-through innovations like back in the day). Modern Citroens are, as far as I'm concerned, downright ugly and what this concept does is not make me confident of a brighter future as far as looks are concerned. Why is that? 50 years ago you didn't need 50 badges to tell you a DS is a Citroen and not a Ford or a BMW or a Peugeot. Is it, maybe, because you could mistake it for a concept from a different manufacturer had it come out lacking all the chevrons?

What I'm trying to say is that I hope this is not how Citroens of the future will look like because that's just a plain ugly car. Of course, they might've sacrificed some freedom in the stylistic department to offer a cool interior and that they did with the different types of seats, the heads-up display on the "limitless" windscreen and other things but, as much as the interior is cool, you still feel they could've pushed the envelope further with something that they use as a marketing tool on the company's 100th anniversary. Frankly, I'd just bring back the Citroen Vision GT from the land of the dead and celebrate the centenary of Andre Citroen's company with that instead of this. Blame me for liking something exciting!

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2019 Citroen Ami Concept.

Read our full review on the 2019 Citroen C5 Aircross

Read our full review on the 2018 Citroen C3 Aircross