Way back in 1990’s when other car manufacturers did not think much of the Indian automobile market, there was one car maker that forayed into the Indian market. We are talking about PSA Peugeot, which brought its 309 in India during the 90’s. This car, however, failed to catch the fancy of the Indians and, in 1997, the car maker pulled out of India completely. But now after almost 13 years, the car manufacturer wants to retry its luck in the Indian market.

The French car manufacturing giant PSA Peugeot-Citroen has plans to introduce two all-new low-cost vehicles that will be targeted primarily for the developing countries like China and India. According to French newspaper Les Echos, the company is developing the car jointly with Japanese car maker Mitsubishi. These two cut-price vehicles, the first one has been codenamed “global small”, and the second one, which is a mid-size sedan, is known as “M3-M4”.

As we said earlier Mitsubishi would be working with the PSA Peugeot on the small car and the platform of this global vehicle could possibly form the basic underpinnings of the Peugeot- and Citroen global small car.

According to PSA, the two new cars fall outside its short-term product line-up which starts from 2010 and concludes in 2021. Last year, however, the company announced the period of 2010 to 2013 as a phase when the company would focus on increasing profitability by expanding sales beyond its current established markets. In China, the company had a market share of 3.5 percent in 2009, and it now wants to increase it to eight percent.

Peugeot is counting big on its upcoming global small car and would target the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) markets. But, we can also expect the Peugeot small car to make its appearance into Thailand and some other countries in the Asia-Pacific region too. The production of the aforesaid global small car would take place in Russia, China and areas of Latin America.

Peugeot has had a very eventful past in India that also saw a joint venture with Tata Motors for the 307 project. This project, however, never took off. Industry experts are saying that the Peugeot-Mitsubishi matrimony could be something to watch out for as both these companies were contemplating a cross-holding of equity which eventually got cancelled.

It is said that Citroen and PSA Peugeot are expected to keep their signature styling consistent for the developing market and it is also believed that the global small car would take design cues from Citroen C3 and Peugeot 207 hatchbacks.