Citroen C3 Picasso Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Citroen C3 Picasso range
Prices: £11,795-£15,895 – on the road
Insurance Group: 3-5
Emissions: 119-159g/km
Performance: [HDi 110] 0-60mph 12.4s / Max Speed 114mph
Fuel Consumption: [HDi 90] (combined) 62.8mpg
Safety: Twin front airbags, ABS WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE: length/width/heightmm 4080/1730/1620

WORK OF ART?

Our Rating: 6.4 / 10

Citroen’s C3 Picasso is an important part of Citroen’s all-encompassing MPV range. Does it make more sense than a conventional supermini? Jonathan Crouch decides

For many these days, a small car can no longer be, well, just a small car. If growing families are to consider modern miniature transport, it must be a good deal more versatile. A good deal like Citroen’s C3 Picasso in fact.

If you want an MPV, talk to Citroen. At least, that would be a good place to start. The French brand has a bewildering array of the things, from utilitarian van-based models like the second generation Berlingo Multispace, built to withstand the attentions of the most destructive brood. To big, plush seven seaters like the C4 Grand Picasso or the even bigger C8, with interiors that contort into more positions than a Romanian gymnast. What the brand didn’t have for many years was an MPV based on a supermini. Something like this C3 Picasso.

You’d be forgiven for not knowing that such things exist, or if you did, wondering how such a concept might be possible within the restricted dimensions of such a small package. The answer is that such cars might not be able to carry any more people than a conventional Fiesta-sized supermini but they can seat five people far more comfortably and offer them considerably greater levels of versatility. Cars like Nissan’s Note and Renault’s Modus have been doing pretty well in this growing sector in recent years, selling significantly below the kind of money you’d need to pay for a Focus family hatchback-sized small MPV like Citroen’s 5-seat C4 Picasso. The C3 Picasso neatly plugs that gap in the French maker’s line-up.

With this kind of car, the driving experience is likely to be unremarkable but the travelling experience can often feel rather unique. So it proves with the C3 Picasso. Yes, the steering’s a little light before higher speeds firm it up, the long-throw gearbox isn’t the slickest you’ll ever use and of course it rolls a little on really tight corners but that isn’t what you remember after driving this Citroen. No, what sticks in your mind are the things that are really important in this class of car: stuff that makes it a pleasure to drive while you’re engaged in the boring things of life – nipping down the shops or picking the kids up from school.

Let me give you a few examples on this. Apart from perhaps the digital speedometer, the first thing that you’ll probably notice behind the wheel is the exceptionally light and airy cabin, courtesy of one of the largest glazed areas in the segment, with up to up to four and a half square metres of glass used around the side and the top of the car if you opt for the panoramic glass roof. Then there’s the high-set seating position, with its excellent range of steering and seat-height adjustment, which gives you a commanding view of the road. And the three-part panoramic windscreen with its slim pillars which makes urban driving much easier courtesy of an unusually wide side vision angle of 29.5° - easily best in the segment. Manoeuvrability and a tight turning circle are also a boon around town, while the car’s vertical rear end makes parking easy. The soft suspension soaks up poor road surfaces in proper Citroen style too, which can make you feel rather smug as you watch other road users crash from one pothole to another.

The range is mainly built around 95bhp 1.4 or 120bhp 1.6-litre petrol units or a 1.6-litre diesel, offered with either 90 or 110bhp. If you’re going to be carrying much or doing the odd longer journey, we’d probably avoid the entry-level petrol 1.4 but otherwise, the engines are a willing bunch, with the entry-level diesel feeling much more flexible than a rest to sixty time of 14.7s would suggest. Refinement at higher speeds could be a little better, thanks a little wind noise around the windscreen and, on petrol models, to the lack of a 6-speed gearbox, but most of the time it’s fine and certainly far better than the bigger Berlingo Multispace model that Citroen will sell you for similar money.

MPVs need lots of interior space which necessitates boxy exterior dimensions. There isn’t really any getting away from this but an astute designer can disguise the fact that his car is the shape of a garden shed. On the C3 Picasso, this trick has been ach