After driving fully electric cars for three weeks in-a-row, it was a pleasant change to sit into a petrol-engine car last week. When I picked up the new Citroen C3 at Automotive in Sandyford on Monday morning, the range with a full tank of petrol on board, said 574km. I knew that I probably wouldn’t have to make a pitstop during the week, which proved correct.
The C3 is also available as a fully electric model, where the range is approximately 460km, but that’s for another week. There is also an Aircross version on the way.
At the Irish launch of the C3 a few weeks back, Colin Sheridan, Business Manager in Gowans for Citroen, said that the C3 is an immensely important car for the brand. He pointed out that 5.6 million units have been sold worldwide and that the C3 makes up 30% of all Citroen sales.
Citroen has certainly made big improvements to the C3 starting with a new logo, which is used at the front and back and also on the oblong-shaped steering wheel. You get the feeling that the car now has more character to it than previous versions.
The car is 1.577 metres high and certainly looks impressive from the front and the rear has a very neat look to it. The 17-inch Atacamite diamond-cut alloys certainly catch the eye and new LED front headlamps add to that fresh look.
As usual, with most new cars, the infotainment screen on the dash dominates the interior. In this case the screen is only ten inches which is fine for a small car. You also get an excellent heads up display which is incorporated into the top of the dash area.
You could possibly squeeze three adults in the back seat, but it’s much more comfortable with just two adults or three children.
Those seats are very comfortable and all the seats, front and back, have some very bright colouring which definitely brightens the décor. Coupled with a cream roof line it makes for a very bright interior which should brighten your mood. And to help you get into a really positive mood in the morning, Citroen provide some neat red tags which are stitched on to the inside of the doors with phrases like: Be Happy, Have Fun, Be Cool and Feel Good.
There are plenty of storage areas in the car for phones, drinks etc., and the door cubby holes are deep, front and back.
My test car came in a nice shade of blue, with a black roof. The boot size is much the same as in other small cars, officially 310 litres of space. No spare wheel, but you do get a repair kit.
The 1.2-litre C3 is built in Trnava in Slovakia and prices start at €23,400 for the six-speed manual and EV version, while the automatic petrol version will cost you €26,800.
No complaints from me, but after driving all those very quiet fully electric cars, naturally there was a bit more road noise than usual last week. However, it was a change to be able to work through the gears and also to have a good old-fashioned handbrake.
The Ford Fiesta would, over the years, have been one of the C3 rivals, but Ford has stopped production of their popular car. The other rivals for the C3 are Toyota Yaris, Dacia Sandero, VW Polo, Hyundai i20 and Renault Clio.
However, this new C3 should be well able to compete with all the rivals in its sector.
