It's been a bad week for under-appreciated icons of motoring.
On Monday we told you that the Subaru Impreza is giving its last pained death rattles before being consigned to the scrapyard in the sky. And today 250 workers at the Peugeot-Citroen factory in Rennes, France, are being told to call it a day as the Citroen C6 finally ends production.
In sales terms, the big Citroen was a monumental failure. Just 20,000 have rolled off the production lines since it went into production in 2005 and just seven C6s have found homes in the UK since the beginning of 2012.
Let's put that into perspective. So far this year, Lamborghini has managed to shift fifty-five Aventadors. Citroen has clearly decided that when its mass-market executive saloon is being outsold by more than seven to one by a £250k Italian supercar, it's probably time to pull the plug.
This is a huge pity because, while the C6 was a sales catastrophe for Citroen, in engineering and aesthetic terms it was something of a triumph.
Those crisp lines, that concave rear window and that supremely smooth hydropneumatic suspension made the C6 an inspired alternative to the staid German executive car competition. By buying a C6 you marked yourself out as a true individual -- someone who values comfort and good looks above performance and handling.
Perhaps the main reason for the C6's failure was that its badge just wasn't exclusive enough. Buyers wanted the perceived exclusivity of the BMW roundle or the Audi rings rather than the slightly downmarket Citroen chevrons. The irony of this, of course, is that everybody on the planet drives a BMW, whereas the C6 remains one of the most exclusive cars on the road.
The death of the C6 marks the end of more than fifty years of Citroen big-car-weirdness which began with the now-legendary DS and continued through the CX and the XM.
On a plus note, there is a glimmer of hope for fans of the C6. After Citroen announced the end of the old XM back in 2000, there was a four-year gap before the C6 was introduced. It's therefore entirely possible -- although, admittedly, highly unlikely -- that the mad Frenchies will be back in a few years with another idiosyncratic executive barge.
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