With Carlos Tavares gone from the CEO’s office at Stellantis, there’s talk about culling brands again.
Who could be on the chopping block?
There’s the newly revived Lancia, which had been on death row for some time under FCA. Only one of the new models announced last year has been released. But that would be an exceptionally easy target.
DS has failed to gain any real traction in terms of headspace among luxury car buyers, not even in China. The recently launched DS Nº 8 supposedly ties in with the original Citroën DS and SM, according to the publicity, but suffers from dumpy coupé SUV syndrome, something that also afflicts the Škoda Enyaq, Volkswagen ID.5 and Ford Capri.
In case the Europeans missed the memo, the Chinese have shown us how to make them more imposing and desirable, such as the Avatr 11 and Rising R7.
Citroën has departed Australia and Dongfeng, its Chinese partner, lists Citroën and Peugeot last among all its brands. Neither has much cachet with Chinese buyers now. Its brand equity is too strong for it to vanish globally, but not so strong that it can continue without any concern.
US buyers wouldn’t hear of Chrysler or Dodge being on the chopping block, but both have come perilously close to irrelevance. Dodge had, till recently, one of the oldest fleets on sale. Chrysler only sells the minivan now. If previous management felt Plymouth was weak enough to fold into Chrysler, then what are the odds that Chrysler could now be folded into Dodge?
Then there’s a lot of silence from Stellantis about Maserati, which concerns fans of the trident …
Of course, there is the other school of thought that if a brand is well defined enough, it should not be culled. Plymouth could have continued under DaimlerChrysler. Lancia and Alfa Romeo appeal to entirely different buyers (as did Rover and Triumph, Chevrolet and Pontiac). Cut one out, and you risk losing them to another group altogether.
Which really sees us come back to DS.
Does it even have brand values independently of Citroën if even the publicity for the latest model keeps recalling the DS and SM? Could it be the one brand where they would simply recapture lost DS buyers at Citroën?
It’s low-hanging fruit for the next CEO, but it will really depend what Stellantis’s appetite is, and whether they want to manage a vast brand portfolio. In 2024, it dropped to number six, allowing Sino–American GM to come up one spot, and that must concern the people at the top.