New Citroen Car Reviews
New Citroen C4 Picasso Lounge Car Review

LIVING THE HIGH LIFE

The plushest 5-seat mini-MPV you can buy is made by Citroen. If you need absolutely all the bells and whistles, then you need a C4 Picasso Lounge. Jonathan Crouch reports

Just because you’ve got to change your car, it doesn’t mean you have to change your life. Take the onset of having a family. It might well mean that you have to tick a different box on your company car requisition form, or pick up a different pile of brochures, moving from a luxury saloon to a family-orientated mini-MPV. But why can’t you have both? Citroen don’t see why not, hence their launch of the car we’re looking at here – the C4 Picasso Lounge.

This is very possibly the plushest small people carrier you can buy, though the £23,995 asking price, steep as it is, doesn’t really reflect that. Before you turn the page, deciding that for this kind of money, you could get something up-spec with a Germanic badge, just check out what this C4 Picasso includes.

It’s full of exclusive equipment such as full black leather upholstery for the four large individual armchair style seats, chrome wheels and a vast panoramic sunroof. There’s curvaceous black bodywork, a sporty rear spoiler and a special chrome grille. It’s mainly inside however, where this car really makes its sales pitch. The four individual luxury leather upholstered chairs, complete with adjustable head and armrests, offer maximum space and comfort, whilst aural comfort is taken care of by laminated windows to reduce road noise and a Philips designed NXT sound-system with state-of-the-art flat-panel speaker technology to produce a clearer, all-round Hi-Fi sound quality.

As with all C4 Picassos, you get a roomy interior in which you can really sit back and relax. This is the five-seat bodyshape: for seven seats, you’ll need to opt for the ‘Grand Picasso’ model, not available in ‘Lounge’ guise. The unique panoramic windscreen is enhanced in this case by a massive sunroof that allows light to pour into the cabin, creating a bright and spacious environment. At night time, the interior is bathed in atmospheric and functional illumination, including convenient reading lights for rear passengers. LEDs in the door handles and adjustable mood lighting strips in the front console and door panels help to create a calming environment.

Under the bonnet of this variant, you get the responsive 2.0 HDi 138bhp engine that most buyers looking for a plush C4 Picasso will choose, the unit mated in this case to a 6-speed fully automatic gearbox that delivers smooth acceleration with a top speed of 118mph and almost 40 mpg on the combined cycle.

One of the first things you’ll notice upon getting behind the wheel is this C4’s unique fixed-centred controls steering wheel which puts many of the car’s main functions at the driver’s fingertips, ensuring that his or her attention is maintained firmly on the road.  Comprehensive driver assistance equipment includes cruise control, speed limiter, front and rear parking sensors, automatic digital air conditioning as well as rain-sensitive wipers and automatic headlights. 

In addition to being one of the most comfortable vehicles on the road, with its self levelling pneumatic rear suspension, the C4 Picasso Lounge is also one of the safest, with its 7 seat stablemate having been awarded a maximum 5-star protection rating by Euro NCAP. Equipped with all the latest Citroën safety technology, the Lounge features ABS with EBD and EBA, ESP with traction control, seven airbags and a reinforced body structure to protect occupants and absorb the energy of an impact.

Although the C4 Picasso’s clever steering wheel may be the first thing to catch your eye, the second will certainly be the wide-angle panoramic windscreen that rises up and over the front seat occupants, doubling vertical visibility in the front to seventy degrees compared to 35 degrees in a standard MPV. Vauxhall may have already offered a similar thing as an option on the latest Astra but this is the first time it’s been fitted as standard to an MPV and the effect is just stunning, the sheer acreage of glass in front of the driver being at first a little unnerving.

It’s almost like the cockpit of a jet fighter. By slimming down the windscreen pillars, the effect of airiness and front visibility is increased still further. It’s not just a styling affect either, the added field of view making it easier to spot motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians coming while preventing the usual craned neck when negotiating small roundabouts.

I’m not sure if someone at Citroën has been getting a backhander from a glass manufacturer because the C4 Picasso also features the biggest sunroof in its class, the extensive side windows too help edge it towards having the largest glazed area of any mini MPV. All of this glass means that the vehicle needs a seriously punchy air-conditioning system to prevent it become a mobile propagator. This car utilises its available space very well. That wheel at each corner stance doesn’t just look good, it also maximises space for the all important passenger cell. The boot has a 500-litre capacity which is about par for the course for a five-seater vehicle. Fold the rear seats down and there’s a massive 1.734 litres of available space.

The C4 Picasso Lounge goes head to head with the plushest versions of cars like the Volkswagen Golf Plus, the Ford C-MAX and the Renault Scenic – in other words, the quality offerings in the mini-MPV sector. As such it’ll need more than just a pretty face to succeed. Or a long specification list. Mind you, Citroen dealers’ legendary willingness to ‘do a deal’ might just do the trick. And it does really look the part in black….

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