05 Sep 06
If there are MPV Oscars to be handed out, the new Citroen C4 Picasso, to be revealed to the world at the Paris show later this month, will surely win one for biggest glass area, the airiest cabin and the best opportunities for plane-spotting.
It doesn't win one for its name, though; that it shares the Picasso moniker with its five-seater, five-year-old predecessor - of which Citroen has made 1.3 million and which is to remain in production for 'many years to come' (albeit probably not in Europe) - will surely lead only to confusion.
Name apart, Citroen's latest MPV is an impressive bit of creativity. The windscreen runs so far back into the roof that the angle of visibility - typically 35 degrees in an average MPV, whose windscreen is further forward than a regular car's - is doubled here to 70 degrees.
This is especially good news for passengers in the third row of seats (the C4 Picasso is a seven-seater, like its Zafira and Grand Scenic rivals, because Citroen says sales of five-seater MPVs are in relative decline) because it means they have an unusually good view forward. That all three seat rows are on the same level and that the front seats backrests have chamfered corners (cut away to make a symmetrical sloping edge) to increase the sense of space, also both help.
Other airiness-enhancers are the low waistline and the refreshingly thin windscreen pillars, the latter achieved by feeding frontal crash forces at or below waistline level as in a convertible. The side pillars are plenty strong enough for rollover strength, though.
