I noticed the Citroën Cactus before I ever drove it, for its natty sides: rubber panels they call air bumps, which are replaceable. I’ve thought about this a lot. The implication is that you can have little accidents with no harm done, so the panels are the car equivalent of a nappy; yet, until all other cars have replaceable side panels, it is unclear to me what you’d be able to prang into. Trees, I guess: except it’s not four-wheel drive and it doesn’t look remotely like a car you’d want to take off road.
Silliness, we call this – like wearing a flak jacket on Oxford Street. The panels also managed to react with the stereo, so that the sides seemed to vibrate even at pretty low volume. If you are trying to impress the laydeez, this may be part of the point; it didn’t impress anybody I drove past, thumping with Adele.
Other quibbles: the controls aren’t as intuitive as they could be, the satnav is noticeably slower than normal and I ended up deferring to my phone. Yet that was in marked contrast to the car itself: especially in the middle gears, it was nothing short of buoyant. It held its speed so well in third that it felt more like sailing than driving. The acceleration is poor on paper – zero to 62mph in 10.6 seconds (to put that in perspective, I’ve yet to meet a car that takes 11) – but never feels that way. It’s all readiness and no drag. The top speed, likewise, is not particularly impressive at 114mph, but there is no sense at all on the motorway that you’ll ever run out of puff. The steering is sprightly and fun, and a tight lock makes for showoffy U-turns.
I had the range-topping Flair, whose main distinction – unless you count heated door mirrors, which I don’t think we can – is a front arm rest that actively impedes access to the parking brake. But the interior is generally original: unfussy, sparky, with a panoramic skylight and assorted nods to modernity such as automatic air-con, lights and wipers.
The exterior, if you can put out of your mind my carping about the air bumps, is bold and pleasing. The shape is squarish but elegant, with slightly narrowed, intelligent-looking headlamps, tinted back windows and a knowingly aggressive nose. If you imagine the SUV a dictator would drive, and then imagine the dictator had a young, puckish, institutionally irrelevant cousin, he would have the Citroën Cactus. Unaccountably, I mean that as a compliment.
Citroën C4 Cactus Flair BlueHDi 100: in numbers
Price £18,195
Top speed 114mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 10.6 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 80.8mpg
CO2 emissions 95g/km
Eco rating 9/10
Cool rating 7.5/10
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