Here are some of Citroen's wildest concept cars

You’d be scared to take it rallying, wouldn’t you? Citroen’s new C3 rally car looks almost too good to scythe down a section of Wales Rally GB, and that front splitter would surely lose in a fight with a Finnish yump. We’re just glad it exists, though, because it looks mega.

And underneath all the rally car tinsel, there’s a C3 hot hatch just waiting to be let out. Citroen has a history of memorable concepts; many of them are zany and brilliant and need your attention immediately.

Words: Ben Custard

The execution and the design of the C-Cactus concept might be quite different from the C4 Cactus you can buy, but the thinking is along similar lines.

Both were meant to be as light as possible, and had one eye on the environment. Although the C-Cactus didn’t make it to production unchanged, you can see the evolution if you squint. No one saw the innovative and wicked Airbumps coming, though, did they?

We don’t often feature vans on Top Gear, but we’ll happily make an exception for the Tubik. It had falcon doors before Tesla made them cool, and an inside that looked like a swanky vodka bar from outer space.

The driver was cocooned in their own seat, presumably cut off from the eight other occupants, and its piggy nose was inspired by the Type H corrugated van.

But look at it in line with the front wheel arch, and it kind of looks like a train coming out of a tunnel. That’s not relevant to anything.

Look closely and tell us the Bugatti Chiron doesn’t look anything like this 2010 concept.

But while the Chiron’s performance might be electrifying, it isn’t electric. The Survolt was an almost silent racing car concept that TG drove, and it had no gears like a Koenigsegg Regera. Citroen’s always been ahead of the curve; supercar makers are just catching up...

Driving one of these gave you 793bhp to play with. Unfortunately, they were digital horsepower. The GTbyCitroen might sound like it was named by Marks and Spencer, but it was actually a collaboration between Citroen and Gran Turismo developers Polyphony Digital. It was one of the first examples of a car being designed for a game and then being physically made afterwards, as motor show eye candy.

It’s difficult to know quite where to start with the Osmose. The premise was that the driver would advertise their destination, and then give a lift to pedestrians going the same way. Which meant that not only did the driver actually have to buy the plastic Early Learning Centre greenhouse, but then give lifts to random pedestrians as if piloting a small bus.

This was Citroen’s view of Utopia at the start of the millennium, and we’re kind of glad this one was shelved.

Imagine what your kids’ friends would say if you turned up to the school gates in this, the almost unpronounceable concept that Citroen unveiled last month.

Underneath the typical motor show fripperies, you’re looking at the design language for future Citroen models, which is loosely based on the C4 Cactus. We really hope the chopped roofline and floating panels stay, though.

Back at the 2006 Paris Motor Show, Citroen unveiled the C-Metisse, a 5-door, diesel-hybrid shooting brake. The low, wide stance and front grille gave a really purposeful, aggressive look, and the boomerang-shaped rear window echoed the bonkers and rare C6.

Coccinelle is French for ladybird, and sure enough, it does look like it could fly away given some wings and a more powerful engine.

It had the tiny 425cc engine from the 2CV, and also resembled a bubble car.

Photo: Thesupermat, via Wikimedia Commons

There aren’t many estates that are just 1.27m high, but the slinky, beautiful Numero 9 is exactly that. It makes up for its height deficiency by being long and wide, and therefore visually striking.

It's technically as fast as it looks as well, with a 0-60 time of 5.4 seconds and 300bhp. But as it's just a concept, those are perhaps as theoretical as its 166mpg and 39g/km of CO2.