How Citroen came up with the C4 Cactus

THE Parisian schoolboy put down his Crayola and hit the pause button on his Magic Roundabout DVD.

“Daddy”, he shouted excitedly in French which I’ve had to translate into Layman’s English. “I’ve managed to sort out that new hatchback you’ve been struggling with.”

The young designer’s dad, the boss of one of the biggest car companies in the whole of France, was astounded.

“That’s impossible”, he explained with an anguished tone of surprise in his voice. “My team have been working for months on this car, because it’s absolutely crucial that we come up with a rival for the Nissan Juke. You’re only seven years old. How have you managed to design it in twenty minutes?

"More to the point, what exactly are those things on the side supposed to be?”

The French firm’s brilliant new design guru paused reflectively and considered putting The Magic Roundabout back on again, but then he remembered how important this bit of extra homework was. This wasn’t just any old car doodle. This had to take on not just the Nissan Juke, but all the other jacked-up, supermini-sized hatchbacks that had already been launched to take it on.

“This is a lot more sensible than all the other cars I design when I’m at school – it’s only got four wheels, and there aren’t any machine guns or rockets on it. It’s just a normal car, like the one you and Mummy take me to school in.”

The boy’s father repeated the question. “But what is that thing on the side of it?”

“Oh sorry, dad, I forgot about that,” the youngster said. “I dropped a Dairy Milk on the paper and it melted, and now it’s stuck there.”

Dad was impressed. “Brilliant! I love it. It’s so avantgarde – no one but Citroen would think to launch a hatchback with a giant chocolate stuck to the side of it. Love the wheels too. I’ll get it signed off for production tomorrow.

“The only problem”, he explained to his pre-pubescent protégé, “is I’ve no idea what to call it. People love the Juke because it not only looks like it’s got landed from another planet, but it’s got a mad name too. So has the Vauxhall Mokka, and so has the Renault Captur”.

Citroen’s new chief designer smiled and instantly turned to his dad with a suggestion for this new, taller version of the company’s C4 hatchback, which goes on sale across the UK later this year.

“Let’s call it the Cactus, daddy”.

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Seven cars shortlisted for European Car of the Year 2014

SEVEN very different cars have all been shortlisted in a contest to find Europe’s favourite automotive arrival from the past year.

Judges of the European Car of the Year award confirmed this week the Citroen C4 Picasso, Mazda3, Peugeot 308 and Skoda Octavia, which are all family-friendly and focused on value, would be going up against the eco-orientated BMW i3 and Tesla S and the luxurious new Mercedes-Benz S Class.

The winner will be announced at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

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Citroën joins the off-roader party

Citroën's DS-branded line of luxury models is about to be joined by an off-roader, if this sveltly styled concept car is anything to go by.

I'm already a bit of a fan of the French firm's upmarket offerings - the rapid DS3 Racing in particular - but this latest offering, which will be officially unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show, suggests the company is looking at grabbing a slice of the SUV cake too.

What the exact production version looks like, how much it costs and what'll it be like to drive remain as jobs for Citroën to sort out in the fullness of time, but there are one or two things I'm already sure of. Firstly, that - unlike the BMW X4 unveiled last week - it looks fabulous, although the company's claim it's got "a hynoptic stare" is just a tiny bit fatuous.

More importantly, it would be impossible for the company to make it worse than the last Citroën off-roader, the godawful C-Crosser.

Say bonjour, then, to the Citroën DS Wild Rubis...

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Is the Citroen Xantia a classic car yet?

"DOES this count as a classic yet?"

Picture the scene. It's a still evening somewhere on the M3, and I'm driving a Golf BlueMotion back from an assignment in the New Forest with two fellow Classic Car Weekly writers on board. Inevitably the conversation turned to just what sort of classics the publication's new boy is into.

The ideal replacement classic - should I scrape together the funds to fill the MX-5-shaped hole in my life - is a surprisingly tall order. I get the aesthetics and the character that makes a classic car so appealing, but I'm also so butterfingered with screwdrivers and hamfisted with spanners that any frail, fettle-hungry antiques like my first Mini are right out. Within about half an hour of starting on the job someone had offered me a very fetching MK3 Allegro, but with my mechanical uselessness it'd be a British Leyland story that'd only end in tears.

In fact, my own suggestions leaned towards modern day funsters with a handy dose of reliability - take, for instance, a Peugeot 106 GTi, a Ford Puma, a Citroen AX GT or, shock horror, another MX-5. I even suggested, possibly because it was getting late, the idea of an old Escort van with a mattress stuffed into the back "because I like going camping". That's how I ended up asking if all sorts of cars I grew up with back in the Nineties have earned their classic car wings yet.

One of my fellow staffers mentioned he ran a Citroen XM - that early Nineties spaceship with the wonderfully French hydrobrilliant suspension - and that led me to a small epiphany in the form of its smaller Xantia sister. It's brilliant because it's got more than a hint of the XM's quirkiness, but it's also friendly enough not to completely alienate an automotive idiot like me. Best of all, I could track down the diesel version because Southport to CCW's Peterborough offices is quite a long way.

I reckon, should the occasion call for it, it's could be a candidate. So then, whoever it is that judges these things.... does this count as a classic yet?

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Fire up the... Citroen DS5

IN the unlikely event I get asked to design a luxury car, the Citroen DS5 is probably not too far off what I'd come up with.

Surely what you want in a plushly trimmed motor is plenty of space, some clever gadgets, a comfy ride, and an interior which, while clearly cosseting, shows where a bit of thought's gone into it? Unfortunately, sales of luxury cars suggest you want sportiness and a blue-chip image instead. The best selling luxury car for this sort of outlay is BMW's 3-Series.

So what do you get if you're a middle management type and you plump for Paris over Munich, or Ingolstadt or Stuttgart for that matter? Well, you get the world's first diesel-hybrid system, and a clever one it is too; while a turbodiesel, in the case of the range-topper I tested one with 2.0 litres and 163bhp at its disposal, struts its stuff at the front end, an electric motor offers a helping hand by sending some eco-friendly oomph to the back wheels. Not only does it offer you the benefits of four wheel drive at this time of year, but it keeps things eco-friendly and, as far as the taxman's concerned, cheap to run too.

Yet what really grabs you with the DS5 is the interior. Fans of the smaller, strikingly good DS3 will find themselves in familiar territory, with the same attention to detail with the materials and use of colour but with the added flair of buttons in the roof, Boeing 747-style. It's also far roomier than any of its immediate executive car rivals, thanks to Citroen shunning the saloon norm and going for a sleek hatchback instead.

Admittedly, it's not got the same grin factor to its handling as the smaller DS3 but that's not what this luxury lounger's about - if you do a lot of motorway work and value comfort over thrills, I'd struggle to find another premium offering that does the job as comfortably.

Hand on heart, I couldn't recommend the range-topping DSport versions - not when it's straying close to Jag XF territory - but the mid-range DStyle, which Citroen reckon are going to be the biggest sellers, have got a lot going for them.

As published in The Champion on December 6, 2012

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Fire up the... Citroen C1

YOU'D be forgiven for thinking that, like the US presidential election, there's only been two candidates vying for your vote in this year's small car battle. It's a straight choice between VW's Up - flanked by its Skoda and SEAT sister models - or Fiat's funky new Panda.

There is, however, a trio of equally engaging city slickers which have been missing out on most of the limelight thanks to the new arrivals. The Peugeot 107, Toyota Aygo and Citroen C1 - which are all effectively versions of each other - might have been around for ages, but thanks to some automotive nip ‘n' tuck and generous pricing they've still got plenty to offer.

The one I tried, Citroen's tiny C1, is still looking fresh thanks to a particularly effective facelift which gives it a cheekier front end than its immediate predecessor. It's a vibe that extends to the interior, with lots of body-coloured metal lining the doors and a single, enormous speedometer with a rev counter popping out of it, MINI style. True, it feels a little cheaper and flimsier than its much newer rivals but it's nicely laid out and more than well equipped for something which makes a virtue out of being small and simple.

Which brings to me to the chief joy of the Citroen's smallest offering - thanks to the engineers' obsession with saving weight, the C1 is lighter than a helium-filled malteser and about as entertaining as a result. Because there's so little weight, the 68bhp its engine serves up feels far more energetic than you'd think, and it darts down the narrowest country lanes and town centre streets with a natural agility. While it'll do motorway work more than easily enough, this car really shines when things get narrow and congested.

The Up and its siblings still feel more solid than the C1, and there's no doubt the Panda's roomier, but haggle a good deal on a C1 and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank with a small car that still makes you smile.

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Are big cars better than small ones?

THE Citroen DS5, for all its clever hybrid tech and avantgarde styling, is a big car. Which is exactly why the company's PR man reckoned I wouldn't like it.

He put it to me, as he handed me the keys for the French firm's largest and most luxurious twist on its DS range yet, that I'm a small car sort of person. Having clocked the tiny sports car I'd turned up in and read my various pieces singing the praises of the original Mini, the Renault 5 and the Suzuki Swift Sport, he suggested the DS5 was just too much car for me to love.

But there are plenty of bigger beasts - motoring's plus size models, in Daily Mail speak - I've developed a soft spot for. The Jeep Grand Cherokee, for starters, might be the size of my first student flat but it's got a charm to its character and plenty of comfort, while Jag's XF is all the executive saloon you could ever ask for.

Meanwhile, the largest motor of any kind I've driven, Ford's Transit, has a no-nonsense sort of vibe to it and a deftness of handling something of its size really shouldn't. I like it a lot. Equally, there's plenty of petite offerings that haven't floated my boat - Vauxhall's Corsa, despite being one of the best selling cars in Britain, being the prime candidate. I know loads you have got one and no doubt love it, but for my money the Fiesta, the Polo and now Peugeot's new 208 will run rings around it when quality, packaging and handling come into play. But, by and large, smaller, leaner cars are better than full fat ones, and I think the car makers no know it.

Why else would the new Range Rover have shaved half a tonne - that's a whole Caterham Seven in other words - off the weight of its predecessor? By contrast, the Land Rover Defender is a big car, but crucially, it's not an inch bigger or heavier than the nation's farmers need it to be.

The other thing everybody seems to forget is that you can make cars ever larger but the roads of Britain, save for a radical new Coalition iniative, will always remain the same size. Worth remembering when you're struggling to thread one of today's more bloated hatchbacks down a typical British B road. It's not the size that matters. It's how you use it.

All of which brings me back to the DS5, which I actually rather like. Keep an eye out for Life On Cars roadtest to find out why.

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