A New DS Hot Hatch Won't Happen, But 'Luxury Performance' Models Will

DS will not develop a traditional hot hatch, according to comments made by a senior company executive. Instead, the brand will leave that job to Peugeot and focus on ‘luxury performance’.

Jean-Marc Finot, head of motorsport for PSA, which owns both brands plus Citroen – and Opel and Vauxhall, once the sale is finalised – told Car magazine that DS would build ‘powerful’ cars but focus more on materials quality and a premium ambiance than outright sporting potential.

Finot, who oversees Peugeot’s Dakar rally efforts as well as DS’s assault on Formula E and Citroen’s World Rally Championship programme, all-but confirmed that a hotter DS range is in the pipeline, but that it will stop short of GTi territory.

“A GTi will be sportier. The DS Performance line will focus upon luxury – powerful cars with a luxury twist.”

This would be a departure from the DS 3 Performance’s more straightforward approach, which was pre-ordained by the direction its original designers at Citroen set for it.

Discussing options for how Citroen and DS could establish themselves in the hot hatch market, it’s clear that Finot is undecided as to whether it’s even possible with Citroen without stealing sales from the Peugeot 208 and 308 GTis. Instead, he explained, a Citroen effort would have to be more about a feel-good factor than anything else. He said:

“It is a people-minded brand, so such a vehicle must be in the feel-good category, between a standard car and a performance car like the Peugeot GTi.”

Whether that means a return to the murky waters of the C4 by Loeb, we don’t know, but we can only hope not. It also remains to be seen what PSA decides to to with the VXR and OPC badges once it absorbs the ex-General Motors brands fully.