Not to be confused with the 2002 C-Crosser concept
As the 2000s rolled by, and the Sport-Utility Vehicle market continued to grow inexorably, PSA senior management must have felt they were missing something from their product line-up. Neither Peugeot nor Citroën had anything in their range to meet the gap, and a lot of sales were at stake.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Mitsubishi senior management were looking at the European market and wondering how best to increase their own sales. They had a decent range of SUVs, but seemed to be lacking in top-notch diesel engine technology – their main markets, Japan and the US, were both petrol-led.
And so an understanding was reached between the two.
The first result for PSA was the 2007 launch of the C-Crosser and 4007. A facelifted version of the second-generation Mitsubishi Outlander, and offering the C5/C6’s 2.2HDi alongside a Mitsubishi 2.4 petrol, the C-Crosser/4007 is probably most notable for one historical side-note – it was the first French-branded vehicle to be produced in Japan, before European-market production moved to the Netherlands in 2009.
