The Citroen Xanthia was a concept car shown at the Paris motor show, built as a design exercise by Citroen's Centre de Style in Velizy. Its name derived from the Greek word for joy of living. The front end was carried over largely unchanged from the newly launched AX supermini, on which the concept's underpinnings were based.
The Xanthia was a barchetta-style open two-door with 2+2 seating and no fixed roof, its windscreen set lower than the rear of the targa-style bodywork and blending into door glass that rose toward the back. Behind the two front seats sat a recessed compartment holding two child seats that could be covered over.
Despite its stripped-back, open-air character, the concept carried a range of electronic features, including seats with a memory function that adjusted automatically to the driver, an onboard computer, and a display for tyre pressure and temperature. A hi-fi system was fitted to be audible over wind noise at speed. Bodywork, hand-stitched seat and interior coverings, and carpeting were finished in a matching red.
Mechanically, the Xanthia used the Citroen AX's four-cylinder engine, offered in the concept in displacements from 954 to 1361 cc, producing between 45 and 95 hp.
