Review of the new Citroen C4 Picasso - Travel Story

Kids are the great levellers. My nephews totally levelled the interior of uncle's Toyota Previa in less than two hours and with the keys to our Citroen C4 Picasso in hand, the two urchins expecting an afternoon at the Wacky Warehouse and a long term test report to deliver, things weren't looking good. So, as any responsible adult would do, I dumped the kids on the in-laws and set off to gain a less stressful perspective on Citroen's bold mini-MPV.

Later I could find out just how it was possible to inflict a head wound on another seven year old while buried in a ball pit or how long the top of the play slide could be defended against Polish marauders. Right now I had other things to do. Things that involved booking a ferry on the internet, sneaking my skis out of the attic without Mrs Enright spotting me and sloping off on the premise of road testing the Citroen. The optional satellite navigation set for Chamonix, France, ski buddy in tow, weekend now officially blown, excuses being rapidly formulated, we headed south.

Some things were apparent straight away. Bundling all of our gear into the back of the car without ruining rearwards visibility meant that the parcel shelf had to be taken down. This would not seem to be a particularly difficult activity and in no other car have I been reduced to the indignity of consulting the manual to perform said feat, but the C4 Picasso's shelf comes in two pieces with a rather odd fixing mechanism. Once eventually discombobulated, there was plenty of room for bags, skis, helmets, poles and all kinds of other things that weren't strictly necessary for a ski weekend but which were brought just in case. With the seats in place, there's 500 litres of space below the parcel shelf. Start folding and dismantling things and you end up with a cavity that we suspected was going to be larger than our suspiciously cheap Chamoniard duplex.

"Our C4 was fitted with all the bells and whistles, but it's the fundamentals rather than the fripperies that impress most"

There was no doubt that our C4 Picasso was a very pleasant place to be, helped by the fact that it was not only the top of the range model, but seemed to have had every conceivable option levered into it. As well as the sat nav, there was the optional hi fi pack, metallic paint, big alloy wheels, leather heated seats and front parking sensors. Most of these options are unabashed luxuries but if you're shopping for a C4 Picasso, I'd strongly recommend the parking sensors. The front of the car disappears from view beyond the steeply raked windscreen and even the tallest drivers won't be able to see the extremities while manoeuvring in tight spots, as we were when we managed to get boxed in at Dover ferry port by a Transit driver who then fell asleep in the queue for the ferry.

Once on home turf, the Citroen performed well. The 138bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine will sit on its cruise control at 85mph very happily on French autoroutes, returning nearly 40mpg even at that velocity. If you're not a fan of cruise control, and many aren't, there's also a handy manual speed limiter function that will prevent you inadvertently attracting the attention of les flics by creeping over the posted limit. With a maximum speed of 125mph, the C4 Picasso had plenty left to give, so when driving it without the cruise or the limiter switched on, it was easy to accidentally creep up towards the three figure mark on empty, featureless autoroute sections. Not too many vehicles I've sampled have made that eight hour blast to the Haute Savoie more bearable than the Picasso.

Our accommodation turned out to be not in the centre of Chamonix, but up a rather vertiginous track a couple of kilometres out of town. Even on the standard tyres, the Citroen coped with the churned up slush quite well. I had an AutoSock, a pair of nylon bags which act like snow chains, in case we struggled but a bit of perseverance was all it took. The next morning temperatures had plummeted to minus 10 and at that point I was cursing the metallic finish on the wheel-mounted gear shifters. Eventually I was forced to drive the car with gloves on, so frigid were many of the metal controls. Like many diesel cars, the C4 Picasso wasn't quick to warm up on a cold morning and if you're merely sitting with the rear window demister on, the radio playing and the engine off, the car will go into a power save mode within a few minutes where it switches everything off, at one point doing so with impeccable timing right at the climax of the Champions League draw.

While I'm certain that kids can rapidly turn a car's cabin from pristine to post-apocalyptic in a matter of minutes, ski mountaineers aren't far behind. With muddy boots, sharp ice axes and crampons, sticky Power Bars and lots of sweat, picking up some friends from a ski tour through the Aiguilles Rouge Nature Reserve would decide whether the C4 Picasso could really walk the walk. One scuff from a ski boot buckle on the back of one of the seats was the damage report afterwards, so it managed that mission fairly well. Hailing from America, that land where car design seems fixed ten years in the past, the skiers were amazed by the Citroen's steering wheel. This features a clever arrangement where the wheel turns around a fixed centre hub on which are mounted all the main controls. Not only does this make using the controls simpler, it also means that the airbag stays in the same position and can thus be better designed to cushion the driver's head in the event of an accident.

If you're not looking to spend the £23,000+ that our test vehicle cost, there are plenty of less costly but still appealing choices in the C4 Picasso line up. With a choice of a 127bhp 1.8-litre or 143bhp 2.0-litre petrol engines or 110bhp 1.6 or 138bhp 2.0-litre HDi diesel units, drivers won't want for decent powerplants. We went for the 2.0-litre diesel, but the 110bhp 1.6-litre diesel would have been just as acceptable. Either way, you'll probably want a diesel if you're going for a car of this kind but whether you can justify the price premium for an oil burner comes down to a simple issue of how many miles you're likely to cover. If you're simply using the car to go to the shops and back, then yes, petrol is probably your best bet. Otherwise, opt for the HDi every time.

The great thing about the C4 is that it marries bold design with genuine everyday usability in a very effective manner. It looks great, drives well and is extremely safe. Yes, it is a technologically complex vehicle and a few of its idiosyncrasies can be a little annoying. What's not up for debate is that it gets all of the fundamentals right and does so with some style. We get some long term cars through that barely leave the car park over the course of a few months. With the Citroen, I have had to devise some very underhand schemes to get my hands on the keys. Trouble is, I think my wife is now wise to 'em all!

TOP 5 C4 PICASSO DEALS

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Citroen C4 Picasso 1.6 HDi VTR+ 5dr Diesel Estate
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