Car Review: C3 Flair PureTech 110 manual

Citroen launch their airbump offensive on the supermini market

Citroen airbumps are the kind of thing that would look at home in a bearded hipster’s flat (all images Citroen)

Airbumps. You don’t have to venture very far into the world of Citroen before you’re confronted with them. Their designers are obsessed by them. On their new C3 five-door hatch, for example, they are a prominent design “cue”, as they say. Airbumps are what boring car people used to call “side rubbing strips” and these strips of rubber were fitted to your Ford Cortina, say, either by the factory or by you, via your local accessory shop. The idea was that these strips of rubber would prevent scrapes and dents to your bodywork. You could also buy vertical ones with built-in reflectors that would go on the trailing edge of the doors to offer even more protection for your paintwork in tight parking spaces. They were functional. But Citroen “airbumps”, a bubbly version of the traditional rubber cladding, are an altogether more fashionable thing, you see, the kind of thing that would look at home in a bearded hipster’s flat.

Airbumps first sprouted on the C4 Cactus, and have become so stylishly successful that now Citroen put them everywhere. So airbump shapes abound on the air vents, the rear lights, the alloys, and the dash generally and the door handles. The C3 flash drive they give to journalists has an airbump-style rubber casing. If they could make the wheels airbump-shaped they would have done it.

Families will be at home in the roomy cabin (Citroen)

The airbump is an attractive sort of shape, a squared-off oval. Strange to say, then, that customers can specify their new C3 without the trademark airbump, which maybe defeats the whole object of the design exercise, as well as suggesting a little nervousness on the part of Citroen as they pitch their little car into the vicious market place that is the “B-sector” – up against the Ford Fiesta, Nissan Juke, Skoda Fabia, Toyota Yaris, Renault Clio, VW Polo… it is a long list of capable small cars, none of which have airbumps. Following the lead set by the Mini a few years ago, Citroen are offering lots of combinations of nine body colours, three roof colours, and a variety of interior trims.

The spec

Price: £15,995 (£17,555 as tested)
Engine capacity: 1.2 ltr 3-cyl petrol     
Power output (hp@rpm):110  @ 1,500
Top speed (mph): 117
0-62 mph (seconds): 9.3 
Fuel economy (mpg): 61.4
CO2 emissions (g/km): 103
BIK: 17%

Inspired by the Range Rover, the C3 also features a “floating roof” look. In all this the closest counterpart in the five-door supermini market is the Skoda Fabia. You can create the most appalling colour clashes if you like, and Citroen will serve them up with equanimity.

Citroen are offering two broad engine options. There are three sizes of three-cylinder petrol engine, all of which offer excellent driving characteristics and rev to ridiculously high limits. Smooth and torquey, they also have a “note” which is vaguely reminiscent of an air-cooled (two cylinder) 2CV. So the C3, unlike the Mini and Fiat 500, may not look retro – anything but – but it does make a 1940s noise.

(Citroen (Citroen)

The diesels are also highly accomplished but not as free-revvingly enjoyable, and of course they suffer from the same drawbacks even modern diesels are prone to.

Citroen place a great premium on comfort, and the C3 is a generally enjoyable place to be. It has broad seats and soft suspension, which makes for a slightly rollabout-on-the-roundabout quality to it, so I can’t see them doing a “GTI” version of it. It sits high, in that cross-over way, and families will be at home in its roomy cabin. Oddly, they don’t specify an armrest for the front seats even on the top level of trim “Flair”. “Connectivity” is also there, though I couldn’t link the app, and therefore my C3’s dash camera, to a mobile phone. If I had been able to I’d share some images of where I had been driving it, and how. I suspect that’s my problem, not the Citroen’s.

(Citroen (Citroen)

So the new C3 has a great deal to commend it, and I’d tend to opt for the basic £10,995 version, offering strong value, and maybe wait a little while to find some lightly used ones cropping up on the market. The C3 has been an important model for Citroen since the first generation appeared in 2003, selling an impressive 3 million units around the world. This airbumped new edition deserves to succeed just as well. Unless airbumps give you goosebumps.