Remember the utterly charming little Citroën Ami? The dinky little electric urban runabout that has seats for two, a 75km battery range, and is in no way whatsoever designed to be used outside of a city or town? Yeah, about that...
A more intrepid Ami
This is the My Ami Buggy Concept, and it's Citroën's idea of what an out-of-town Ami might be like. While still trying to stick - broadly - to the simple and affordable recipe of the standard Ami, the Buggy gains some adventurous add-ons to try and make it a little more intrepid. Citroën describes it as "a micro-mobility recreational vehicle for use at the weekend, on holiday by the sea or in the countryside."
Hang on, did we say add-ons? Actually what we should have said was deletions, because the first thing you'll notice about the Ami Buggy is that there are no doors. Instead, you get open apertures, which can be covered over with transparent rainproof covers, just like an old Citroën Mehari. When you don't want those, they can be rolled up and stashed behind the seats.
Above the windscreen, there's now a neat little sun vizor, while on top of the roof there's now a pickup-style LED light bar. The idea is that, if you're out and about, these lights can give you a 'camp fire' atmosphere, one topped off by playing music through the little Marshall Bluetooth speaker.
SUV-esque styling
The Buggy also gets off-roader-y wheelarch extensions, protective grilles over the lights, sidesteps, and a roof rack with an exterior-mounted spare wheel. There are mud and snow tyres on little matte-gold wheels (a touch of old Subaru rally car there...) and it's finished in three main colours - black, khaki and yellow. Anodised black for the wheelarches and roof, a 'hammered' black effect for the rear panel, and bright yellow and khaki highlights everywhere else. Basically, it looks like a C5 Aircross and a C5X had kids, and one of them got into the SUV dressing-up box...
If there was any doubt that it's a Citroën, those doubts will be dispelled by the splashes of Citroën chevrons all over the place, while fans of Top Gun will be delighted by the fact that there are 'Pilot' and 'Co-Pilot' stencils on the roof above the appropriate seats. The seats themselves even get racing-style numbers, while there are bright yellow arrows, meant to show the direction of the airflow, over the tiny spoiler.
Inside, the Ami Buggy is a bit more luxurious than the standard model. Instead of the hard, hose-down plastic seats, there is Citroën's sofa-like 'Advanced Comfort' cushions, with 70mm of foam depth rather than the school-chair-like 35mm of the regular Ami. They are interchangeable between the two seats and can be removed and washed if needed. Their design is meant to evoke the look of marine buoys.
Custom luggage
The storage bins on the dashboard get a gold metal rack, which helps to stop stuff moving about, while the Ami Buggy also gets its own set of bespoke luggage. There's a 'bum bag' that magnetically attaches to the steering wheel and a 'sailor's bag' that stashes under the dash. There are also new storage bins built into the door openings, and those can also carry specially-designed detachable bags.
Other neat touches include mounting points for a GoPro or other 'action camera', extra cupholders, a new tube-shaped mobile phone holder (which can be personally engraved, apparently), as well as an idea that would see new accessories for the car quickly designed and built using 3D printing, in theory allowing owners to work out what they need and have it made, bespoke.
"My Ami Buggy is a proposition in line with the philosophy of Ami Electric, which is not a car. We have therefore looked for inspiration in the world of construction games for the fun and functional side, industrial design for ergonomics and aesthetics, encompassing everyday objects (furniture, lighting, etc.) and fashion accessories (sneakers, sports equipment, glasses, etc.). The simple, extruded shapes of the camera and smartphone holders, for example, were inspired by the work of designers who created essential and timeless consumer objects in the second half of the last century. My Ami Buggy Concept needed to be functional and simple, in the purest spirit of iconic and contemporary industrial objects" said Samuel Pericles, designer of the My Ami Buggy.
Production chances? Probably not great, but Citroën is leaving the door open, saying: "the original mobility object developed by Citroën is always ready to explore new horizons."