Meaningless Retail Prices…
Money, the great intractable without which sees few cars sold. DTW is no financial advice institution; we’re more concerned with aspects of vehicle design and culture, but nevertheless understand the need and use of filthy lucre. Which is the jumping off point for today’s peregrinations, where I attempt to Continue reading “The Empty Handed Traveler Whistles His Way Past the Highwayman”
Crossovers: So over.
For some years now, there has been a modest but persistent sentiment amid the European motor industry’s think tanks that the current wave of CUV crossover popularity would eventually peak, there being a point after any new fashion takes hold of the public consciousness, long after the early adopters Continue reading “Better With Allure”
We took a Citroen C4 Picasso on a 186 mile trip. It does one thing better than an Opel Zafira. We’ll come to that later….
Editor’s note: To mark the recent announcement that Citroën are to discontinue the (now-named) Grand C4 Spacetourer this July, we mark its passing by revisiting this exhaustive DTW research report, first published on 22 September 2015.
Introduction
There’s so much wrong with this car. Ahead of you are 2,158 words, almost none of them complimentary.
More introduction
Launched in 2013, the C4 Picasso is a car that I am sure you have all seen on the school run. It has seven seats and an electrically powered tailgate. DTW took charge of a C4 Picasso with the express intention of seeing how it coped with three adults and two children. Normally I would structure a review like this along the lines of a general description, design, engineering, driving, comfort and conclusion. That general ordering assumes that all of those things are of equal value and you’d want to Continue reading “2015 Citroen C4 Picasso Review”
The 2006 Citroën C-Triomphe didn’t quite live up to its billing.
Editor’s note: This article was first published in Driven to Write on 24 October 2017. Owing to the poor quality of the original images, stock photos have been used.
PSA announced this particular iteration of their C-segment contender in 2004, a car which replaced the unloved and visually unimpressive Xsara model line. The C4, believed to have been the styling work of Donato Coco and Bertrand Rapatel under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Ploué marked the beginning of a stylistic renaissance at Citroën’s Vélizy design centre. Au revoir to the creative torpidity which characterised the Jacques Calvet era, welcome back creativity. Theoretically at least. Continue reading “Arc de Triomphe”
Citroen reveals its big idea.
It ought to be obvious really; that incredibly fertile period of Citroën design overseen by the recently departed Robert Opron and presided over by CEO, Pierre Bercot was merely a blip; a marvellously inventive, optimistic and futuristic one, but a blip nonetheless. One where high speed travel in supreme comfort was to Continue reading “Creative Dissonance”
Time to put down that chisel.
It’s probably sentimentality, but despite decades of disappointment I still maintain a vague attachment to what is by now only a platonic ideal of Automobiles Citroën. At least that’s the only reasonable rationale for why my interest is invariably piqued by the announcement of any freshly minted car bearing the double chevron. Equally without variance however is what I feel about what is routinely presented.
The newly fashioned Citroen C4 is only the very latest of a long and wobbly line of underwhelming visions from Vélizy; a car which replaces without doubt one of the dreariest vehicles ever to bear that fabled emblem, although in the latter case, it was probably the other way round – the emblem (just about) bearing the car.
This being so, it was either a case of overcompensation on the part of Citroen’s design team, or more likely a misguided directive to Continue reading “Best Indentations”
Another year, another car of the year contest. Try to care.
Who would be be a European Car of the Year Juror? This time round there was not even the customary Danish beach jamboree last October to reward their earnest efforts. There will however be the usual accusations of national partisanism, bias towards those manufacturers who Continue reading “Car of the Year 2021. A Bleak Reflection”
Our item yesterday on the demise of the Citroen C4 made me consider blandness yet again.
Here’s the car. Despite its many small styling features there’s nothing to focus on. Unlike the Alfa Romeo 164 it suggests nothing more than what is there. Like the Tagora, the car has undynamic proportions, a generic contemporary design which offends no-one except to the extent one considers it a waste of resources. Continue reading “A Potato For Sunday”
The 2006 Citroën C-Triomphe didn’t quite live up to its billing.
PSA announced this particular iteration of their C-segment contender in 2004, a car which replaced the unloved and visually unimpressive Xsara model line. The C4, believed to have been the styling work of Donato Coco and Bertrand Rapatel under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Ploué marked the beginning of a stylistic renaissance at Citroën’s Vélizy design centre. Au revoir to the creative torpidity which characterised the Calvet era, welcome back creativity. Theoretically at least. Continue reading “Arc de Triomphe”
Recently we have been debating Opel and Vauxhall. The general consensus is not that good for a brand fielding its best products since the last lot of good products…
…which, if you think about it, it is pretty much most of their cars with one very debatable model and one not debatable model. For reasons known only to Opel and Vauxhall’s marketing staff, Opel have been tarred with a Clarkson-shaped brush. Good old Sir Jeremy, now Lord, Clarkson, saw fit to damn the Vectra “B” because it wasn’t an Alfa Romeo, Porsche or BMW M3 but happened to suit the needs of regular motorists.
In so doing he seemed to Continue reading “Better Never Than Not at All”
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