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Citroen C4 Gallery
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| PERFORMANCE RATING: |
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The best all-round C4 here is the 2.0 HDi, which uses the (PSA-built) engine also found in a Focus 2.0 TDCi. It's a particularly gutsy and responsive unit, able to cruise serenely or squirt past slower traffic with a push of the right foot in typical modern-diesel fashion. Its six-speed gearbox gives it very long legs, and there is little response lag when accelerating from low revs. There are a couple of 1.6-litre HDi diesels too, of which we’ve only driven the more powerful 110bhp version. It is less responsive than the 2.0-litre version, but a surprisingly capable and strong performer given its limited cubic capacity.
By comparison the 2.0 petrol C4, tested by us in manual guise, needs to be worked harder and can get boomy at high revs - over 5500rpm, which is far beyond the diesel's range. The 1.6-litre petrol engine is smoother and quieter, and doesn't feel as if it has a 28bhp power deficit especially when it adds a burst of energy as it passes the 3000rpm mark.
The 180bhp unit in the VTS has a different character again. It's the engine already seen in the Peugeot 206 GTi 180, with continuously-variable valve timing, a free-flowing cylinder head and a peaky power delivery. It's smooth enough at low speeds but lights up around 4000rpm, passing the torque peak at 4750rpm and delivering maximum power at 7000rpm. That said, its performance figures are brisk rather than blistering: 0-62mph takes 8.4 seconds, but the VTS will run to an impressive 141mph helped by a low aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0.28.
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