First new word of the day – ‘Visiospace’. Silly, but not too difficult, really – it’s Citroën’s way of saying that their rather nice looking new mid-sized MPV, the C4 Picasso, is spacious and has lots of visibility. Put it another way, it has seven full-sized adult seats and more glass than a fish-tank, including a vast, swept-back windscreen that starts low on the nose and runs way back to join the full-size glass roof.
A field of vision of seventy degrees rather than the usual 35 or so, they say. So second new word – ‘Grand Angle’. Don’t be put off, though, it’s very handsome and looks extremely practical too, with easily changeable seating configurations and up to 1951 litres of luggage space so long as you don’t want to carry six friends at the same time.
It also has paddle shift gears with an additional column-mounted lever that reminds people of how cars used to be, according to the designers. And again to give it a lot of credit, it sits well in a range that has become increasingly stylish over the past few years and shows that Citroën’s styling concepts are genuinely driving how their real cars look.
So there’s a strong family feel across a range that covers most of the angles and goes (from the most compact to the largest) C1, C2, C3, C3 Pluriel, C4, C5 and C6 and Xsara Picasso, via choose-your-own-size MPVs from Berlingo to the big C8 via that new C4 Picasso.
Handsome stuff almost all round and, according to the sales figures, doing pretty well. They talk a lot about new environmental technologies, too – including the C2 StopStart, which does exactly that in traffic; the C3 Flex which runs on any alcohol-based fuel from zero to 100 per cent mix; and the C3 GNV, which stands for Natural Gas Vehicle and runs on exactly that.
There’s a C4 concept with diesel hybrid power, which they say could be a production option by 2010 or 2011 once they’ve brought the manufacturing costs down to something realistic. And finally there’s the next generation full-blown concept, the C-Métisse – very bold, with huge gull-wing scissor doors, a hybrid combination of V6 HDI turbodiesel power and electric hub motors, and a sporty character headlined by a 0-62mph time of 6.2 seconds, with consumption of around 6 to 7 litres/100km. They admit that it’s sportier than Citroën’s usual directions, but things change, so don’t be surprised to see something more real come out of it eventually.
And, by the way, they also showed new commercial vehicles called Jumper and Jumpy – and a DS-based sculpture that morphs into tall pile of separate panels. They called that ‘totem mobile’.
They have a real way with words.
