CarBrandLogos archive · Citroën · 2002
Citroën's supermini for a quarter of a century, from folding roof to budget EV.
Discover the storyPhoto: © M 93 · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Citroën C3, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
The C3 arrived in 2002 to replace the Saxo, and it was the first small Citroën in years to look like a Citroën rather than a rebadged Peugeot. The body was a rounded, upright five-door hatchback with a high roof and large glass area, drawing on the C3 Lumière concept, and it sold strongly across Europe.
2006 Citroën C3 Exclusive hatchback 01 · OSX · Public domain
02
The most interesting derivative was the Pluriel of 2003, which attempted to be a hatchback, a cabriolet, a spider and a small pickup in one vehicle: the fabric roof retracted and the side rails could be removed entirely. The idea was better than the execution — the rails had to be stored at home, and the structure was compromised — but it was the kind of thing only Citroën tried.
2006 Citroën C3 Exclusive hatchback 02 · OSX · Public domain
03
Later generations went in different directions. The second-generation C3 offered the Zenith windscreen, a panoramic screen extending far back over the front occupants' heads. The third, from 2016, borrowed the Cactus's Airbump side panels and a personalisation-heavy approach that made it one of Citroën's best sellers.
2005 Citroën C3 interior 001 · Mtaylor848 · CC BY-SA 4.0
04
The fourth generation, launched in 2023 on Stellantis's Smart Car platform, shifted the car back to its origins: a tall, simply engineered hatchback sold at a deliberately low price, with an e-C3 electric version priced to undercut almost every other European electric car. It is built in Slovakia for Europe, and a separate, larger C3 is produced in India and South America.
At a glance
Produced
2002–presentBody
5-door hatchbackTechnical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the C3's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →Contemporaries from the 2000s
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