Citroen Ami Buggy sales on ice because of the UK’s weather

The weather, buses and Britain’s diminished scooter culture are reasons why imports of Citroen’s upgraded Ami Buggy are on hold for now.

Citroen has shifted more than 75,000 Amis in 17 different countries, with the UK accounting for more than 1,000 in the past two years. That includes 40 of the first-generation, limited-edition Buggy. 

Now, the Buggy is back with a facelift, no limit on production and the same basic recipe: an Ami that ditches the doors for metallic side protection hoops and adds a rear spoiler and canvas roof for open-air motoring. 

That’s fine for Monte Carlo or Marseille, but it doesn’t have quite the same appeal in Manchester – or anywhere else in the inclement UK for that matter. “But we are thinking hard about doing the Buggy,” Citroen UK managing director Greg Taylor told Auto Express. The revised standard Ami is coming into the UK for sure.

The most noticeable change for the Ami and its Buggy spin-off is the phasing out of double lamps for a single pair of round spotlights. “And moving the lights higher means people instinctively read them as two expressive eyes in a face,” explained Ami designer Antoine Gaillot-Drevon. The new lamps look like a tribute to the 2CV’s and the designer admits the new fender gill is a straight lift from history’s most famous Citroen, too. 

And because the Ami’s opposing panels are symmetrical to save tooling costs, there’s a new rear panel mirroring the front’s with higher, rounded red lights. Citroen’s 2D logo (in eye-catching yellow on the Buggy) also figures, while new black stickers accentuate the wheelarches. 

Whereas the fixed head Ami has wheel trims you can funk up with Minty (green), Icy (white) or Spicy (red) stickers, the Buggy rolls on unadorned gold 14-inch steel wheels. The premium for a Buggy is €1600 (around £1,365) in France, with prices starting at €9,590 (broadly £8,200).

It’s unusual for a brand’s cheapest car to be its image-builder, especially one with a 28mph top speed and packing just 8bhp. The battery is just 5.5kWh – smaller than many plug-in hybrids’ – and charging to its 46-mile max range takes four hours with a 3kW charger.

So the Ami is not your typical car – indeed it’s actually a quadricycle, one that starts at £7,695 for the outgoing model in the UK. “It’s one of the highest traffic drivers to our website,” said Taylor. “People ask ‘what is that?’ and investigate it: Ami is a great brand halo.”

But online interest doesn’t translate into big sales. The UK team reckons that Britain’s superior rural bus services (just how bad can they be in France?), and the dwindling of British scooter culture since the heady days of mod culture, captured in the film Quadrophenia, limits the pool of young people who could drive an Ami.

And that’s the key factor limiting potential: UK drivers need to be 16 and have a scooter licence, whereas in many European countries the minimum Ami age is 14 after obtaining a permit. And those two years make a big difference, with European parents acquiring one so the children can get to school independently, a group which makes up the majority of sales.

Some high-profile UK corporates have embraced the Ami, including Center Parcs, Luton Airport and former Rothschild family home Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. And retail customers? “Owners are older in the UK than Europe, and tend to be urban drivers in their late 60s or early 70s,” says Taylor. 

Citroen reckons it’s revolutionised electric micromobility in Europe. But in the UK the Ami is more like an upmarket mobility scooter for progressive pensioners. 

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