The Peugeot Citroen Alliance is the second largest Europe based automaker and news of them making an Indian comeback have been making waves for a long time.
They were here last in collaboration with Premier Automobiles during the 90s. Sadly the stint did not quite go down the way they would have liked. They again tried to make a comeback in 2011 when they had announced that they would set up a manufacturing plant at Sanand, which would have a capacity of 1,70,000 units per annum. Even this plan failed because of some financial problems. Interestingly, during that time, they had started testing some of their models in India which we spotted in Pune.
In a latest, as per a report published in Financial Express, the PSA Peugeot Citroen Alliance is trying to work on a comeback to the Indian market, thanks to the inflow of profits because of its collaboration with Dongfeng of China. Moreover, India seems to be the next logical step to conquer in the BRIC market. They already are present in Brazil, Russia and China, so logically India is a very possible step. The Sanand plant though, would just remain a dream for now.
There is reportedly, a Peugeot team currently in Pune studying and analyzing the possibilities. Words are blowing in the wind that they are even thinking of setting a new plant either in Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra.
What is more interesting are the recent spottings of Citroen C4 Picasso, a 5-seater MPV in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Contrary to this report of PSA partnering with international partners General Motors (GM) for contract manufacturing, we believe there is a Mahindra angle as well. This is because the Citroen C4 spotted in India recently, both the times, bore a very clear Mahindra connection.
A lot remains speculative at this point of time but we would love to see some of Peugeot’s beauties running on our Indian roads, like the 301 featured on this page.
