AVTOMOBILIZEM.com

Peugeot-Citroen may revive the Panhard brand for a new range of premium vehicles based on shared platforms. The strategy has worked extremely well for Toyota and Lexus and PSA hopes to increase profits by implementing something similar. Panhard, for those of you too young to remember, was a large French manufacturer before WWII but stopped making passenger cars in 1967. The company is still around, but only build light military vehicles.

PSA’s new CEO Christian Streiff has said in the past that the group already plans to release six new models by 2010 and to reduce fixed costs by 30%. The next order of business could be to upgrade some vehicles and sell them for a higher profit, but with the amount of competition in the industry this will probably be a tough call.

According to a report from Automotive News Europe, the rumors were started when a stretch Peugeot 607 was built for the French president.

We’re not convinced that PSA will be able to succeed in the premium sector. Reviving a brand that nobody has heard of is tough enough (Maybach anyone?), let alone the lack advanced drivetrains and technology required to compete with the big boys.

Streiff has also said that they may consider re-introducing Peugeot to the US now that the small car market is heating up, but this is also a long shot.

myster je napisal/-a:Eazy, če bi tale avto bil črn pa ene hude litke gor, nebi zgledu tk slab.

MacTron je napisal/-a:

myster je napisal/-a:Eazy, če bi tale avto bil črn pa ene hude litke gor, nebi zgledu tk slab.

am ne vrjamem da se bi s tem strinjal ta uporabnik sploh pa ne Joie de vivre!
kar so zaprisezeni da taksen avto mora imeti tudi taksne feltne (to je zgolj
spostovanje zgodovine avtomobilizma in nikakersno "stylanje" tu ne pride v upostev

Joie de vivre! je napisal/-a:Glede Panharda pa dvomim da bo kaj iz tega. Čemu in za koga? Francozi luksuznih avtomobilov ne kupujejo, če pa že, kupijo večinoma Nemce.

Autoblog je napisal/-a:According to industry mag Automotive News, the appearance of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a stretched Peugeot 607 has ignites speculation that PSA could revive the defunct Panhard marque as a premium/luxury automobile division that follows the Lexus formula of sharing components with existing PSA/Peugeot-Citroen products.

Panhard was sold to Auverland, a French military vehicle manufacturer, in 2005, and the brand is now used on said machinery. We assume that PSA would have to arrive at some agreement with that entity if it were ever to resurrect the name on passenger vehicles.

PSA, for its part, has no comment on the matter other than to say that a premium division is one of the many things under consideration by its new leadership. Our friends at Motor Authority question whether or not PSA has the technology and resources to make a luxury Panhard brand a success. They also point to Maybach as an example of how hard it is to revive an old marque, but we think Maybach's issues are more than a lack of initial name recognition. Those cars just don't look different enough than their Mercedes brethren. If the Exelero was ever built, it would be an instant sellout. But we digress.

PSA's future direction will be announced in September, at which point we'll presumably find out if a premium division -- Panhard or otherwise -- is planned.

[Source: Automotive News via Motor Authority]