Fashionable, Playful and Electric Car

French  fashion House Courrèges and Citroën E-MEHARI, an all-electric cabriolet, are the most natural of partners. Citroën E-MEHARI styled by Courrèges examines space and functionality through the lens of liberty, with the play of colours and materials focused on White, the Courrèges signature colour and symbol of light.

Some 50 years after Méhari appeared on the scene in May 1968, two visionary french Brands teamed up on an exciting project: Citroën E-MEHARI styled by Courrèges concept car. It’s based on Citroën E-MEHARI, unveiled in December 2015, a car inspired by its no less revolutionary forebear. Citroën E-MEHARI is an all-electric four-seater cabriolet. It’s fun, modern, environment-friendly, and eminently true to the values of creativity, freedom and optimism that Citroën has been advancing since nearly a century ago.

Very similar values are held by french fashion House Courrèges, whose modern, innovative creations have always radiated brightness and optimism. Courrèges revolutionized the fashion world of the sixties and seventies, just like Citroën revolutionized the motoring world with its legendary Méhari, released in 1968. Both share the spirits of freedom, youth and creativity. Courrèges, like Citroën, is a Brand driven by free-thinking visionaries.

This realization prompted Citroën to approach Courrèges with a project to sublimate new E-MEHARI model into an exclusive and luminous creation. It would be fashionable, playful and electric, a trend-setter in every sense of the term, naturally enough given the background and reputation of this emblematic Brand. Courrèges bosses Jacques Bungert and Frédéric Torloting, who “believe very strongly in the crossover between different creative fields”, took up the idea and called in their design studio, which would liaise with the Citroën Design Centre to run development work on the concept car.

With this project, both partners are expressing a desire to invent new designs, using materials of tomorrow to come up with works that combine outstanding beauty with practical usability. It’s a quest for modernity, for a radical departure from classic norms, but firmly rooted in real life as it is lived, with a touch of sportslike elation and a strong sense of poetry.

The partnership would yield a concept car abounding in energy, bathed in light, open to the world outside, and powered by an innovative lithium metal polymer battery.  Top speed reaches 110 km/h and urban-cycle vehicle range 200 km. Full battery recharge takes 8 hours at a dedicated 16 A charging station (home station or public station such as Autolib) or 13 hours from a standard 10 A domestic power outlet.