C4 Picasso a work of art

This car codded me at the very beginning. Maybe that's not totally my fault. My working life happens to be extremely busy just now, and when I picked up the C4 Picasso I hadn't checked to see which one I was getting.
Two days later, after being very impressed by the smoothness and pull of the 2.0 litre petrol engine, I happened to check under the hood. And found that I had, in fact, been driving behind a 1.6 litre turbodiesel!
So from the very start, let me heap praise on the power unit in the review car. Even with the equivalent of five people up -- the vehicle is a seven seater, by the way, and my 'equivalent' included a trip to the local 'Integrated Waste Management Facility' during a major clearout of the office -- it had more than enough pulling power, and throughout my time with it carried me along in an almost serene manner.
This compact MPV from Citroen is a lot of things. Some of which it shares with its competition. It is practical, as are all MPVs by their nature. It is comfortable, an essential in any car that is designed to carry many people usually on longish runs. It has a manageable footprint for those times when the transporting and the parking are in the urban jungle.
But the C4 Picasso is more than some of its peers.
It is truly distinctive in style. It is technologically innovative. And, in the tradition of its brand, it isn't afraid to push beyond accepted boundaries.
Most of the time, it succeeds in what its designers have tried to do. Even the non-successes deserve applause for brave effort.
The review car was, apart from having the smallest engine option in capacity terms and power terms, fully loaded with goodies.
So there was the six-speed automated manual gearbox, itself part of why that small engine performed so seamlessly. And a DVD system that included neat pop-out screens in the rear of the front seatbacks. Which I never got to try, but have no doubt that the children of many owners will appreciate them.
The standard list for all versions is truly impressive. ESP, seven airbags which contributed to the C4 Picasso getting a leading score in its segment in the ENCAP crash tests, hill start assist and cruise control. And those are just the ones that stand out.
The C4 Picasso also has a windscreen which actually doubles the amount of vision for those in the front seats against anything else on the market. That helicopter that you can hear overhead but don't see in another MPV, well, you can wave to the pilot from the C4 version.
There's a clever slide-out sun visor system for when the brightness gets all too much.
And those behind you don't lose out in the lumens stakes either -- there's a full panoramic glass roof so they too can enjoy the sun, or the cloud shapes.
Any car carrying families on tour needs a lot of storage. Heck, even two people on a long weekend can run out of places to put the essentials, especially with women who use their car as a trailer for their handbag.
(Sure to get me into trouble, that last; but I tell it like it is, whatever the consequences. Some of you may remember the furore following my review in the last millennium of the Fiat Tipo Sedicivalvole?)
Actually the difficulty here is more likely trying to find where things were put; there are little pop up and pop down doors everywhere, in front, to the side, underfoot.
For the larger load carrying, one or two of the rear rows of seats can be stowed fairly easily to give a 1,951 litres of carrying volume. The front end of that space isn't going to be quite flat, but is close enough.
Other neat details for the family trips, especially at night, include the reading lights set into the seatbacks over the flip down tables, which allow perusal of books and comics without distracting the driver.
(ED: Where is he coming from? Comics ... when there's a DVD screen? Hasn't he heard of computer games?)
From the driver's perspective the C4 Picasso is ... hmmm ... well, almost 22nd century?
The centre dash main instruments display offers a variety of colours, and is generally very clear; but a little time spent getting familiar with all that it offers will be well rewarded.
And you need to get used to where the heating/aircon controls are; they're to the right of the steering wheel, where you'd normally look for the adjustment for the instruments lighting. Didn't care for it much.
The steering wheel takes the 'multipurpose' description to potentially worrying levels. Sure, the static centre wheel area is something we've lauded Citroen for since they introduced it in the C4 hatch, but in the Picasso variant it sports an awful lot of controis.
Cruise control and speed limiter buttons and scrollers, phone management, entertainment controls, and handling the menu system for the onboard computer/sat navigation, vie for attention with the paddles to manually shift the automated gearbox, and the lever for that latter is also part of the setup.
However, it all proves to be much more user friendly than BMW's i-Drive, for instance. And when you get used to using the fleshy bit at the base of your thumbs to operate some of them, it all makes a lot of sense.
That's a lot about the small details, and I'm running out of space. How does it drive?
Well, isn't this where we came in? Try it. You'll like it. Prices start at 27,300 euros in the Republic.
And your neighbours will know you're different, without you having to employ precocious kids with annoying accents.

Source : www.sligoweekender.ie