Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £12,195 to £18,595
Distinctive and futuristic looks, innovative interior, refined, easy and fun to drive, very roomy, excellent NCAP crash test scores
Citroen's discounting might chip away at the image; reports of poor reliability and build quality issues; high depreciation.
Citroen builds the most interesting car in the class and rediscovers its brand values
Citroen's striking new C4 was a fine replacement for the lacklustre Xsara both on the road and the rally circuit - Sebastien Loeb won the 2007 World Rally Championships in a C4 WRC.
Roadgoing C4s come in two very different-looking body-styles. The five-door has a rounded tail a little like the smaller C3's, while the three-door Coupé has a chopped-off rump reminiscent of an early Honda CRX or, given the shape of the rear side windows, an Alfasud Sprint. Its rear window's upper surface cuts far into the roof, a panel shared with the five-door even though the latter gives the illusion of a higher roofline.
Underneath its unique clothes (complete with Citroen's new-look nose featuring a chevron-centre air intake and 'boomerang' headlights), the C4 is much the same as Peugeot's 307 and shares that car's PF2 platform with minor changes to the suspension settings. That means a similar range of engines: the petrol units, all with 16 valves, are a 90bhp 1.4, a 110bhp 1.6, a 138bhp 2.0 and a 180bhp 2.0 for the Coupé-only VTS, while diesels are two 1.6s, of 92 and 110bhp, and a 138bhp 2.0. Once again, we see diesels matching similar-capacity petrol engines for power while far exceeding them for torque. There's also a 143bhp, 2.0-litre petrol engine matched to an automatic transmission for the top Exclusive five-door. A Sensodrive sequential-shift semi-auto is also offered with some engines.
That all sounds conventional enough; the radicalism comes when you sit inside. The steering wheel has a broad, fixed centre boss containing four switchgear zones, which are easy to reach and render the rest of the facia uncluttered. The central facia-top LCD instrument display is see-through to make it easier to read in sunlight, there's an aroma diffuser built into the centre vents and the options of both a lane-wander warning device and a speed limiter. The idea is to make the C4 a calm, relaxing place to be, which will - says Citroen - encourage safe, considerate driving.
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