CITROEN is slashing the price of its important new people-carrier, the C8, virtually before it even goes on sale.
In a move certain to confuse buyers, and which will possibly have an adverse effect on second-hand values, it makes a nonsense of the list prices that have only just been published.
As is now the norm for Citroen, the company describes the reduction as a so-called cashback, which means buyers go through the farcical process of paying the full price, and then getting £2,000 back.
The losers in this process are those wanting to get one of these vehicles as a company car, which curiously enough is precisely who Citroen is hoping to attract.
The vehicles they are eligible to have as company vehicles are almost always based on the list price, and it is the list price - and not the actual amount paid for the vehicle - that determines their benefit-in-kind tax liability.
This means that the BIK of the cheapest Citroen C8 LX 2.0 is 25 per cent of the official £18,295 list price, even though the vehicle actually changes hands for just £16,295.
It also means that an employee with a user-chooser ceiling of say, £16,500, will not be eligible to select a C8, because officially the price starts at £18,300.
Citroen says that the cashback deal will last only until the end of March, at which point the cost of the vehicles will suddenly rocket by £2,000, back to the official list price with the ending of the discount.
There is a similar £2,000 cashback on Picasso and C5 models, together with £1,000 cashback on Saxo, C3 and Berlingo Multispace models, which all end at the beginning of April.