Citroen C3 Hatchback (2024 - ) review

With a sub-£18,000 starting price the entry-level C3 gives you plenty of bang for your buck. While it doesn’t quite match the Suzuki Swift in value for money terms, the C3 is keenly priced, prioritising space and comfort over mod-cons like keyless entry. However, it would be remiss of us not to mention you could also have a Renault Clio for about the same money as the C3 and running costs are likely to be similar. When we took the petrol C3 out on our test drive it was displaying around 50mpg so it shouldn’t cost the earth to run. There’ll also be a hybrid version expected by the end of the year which Citroën claims will reduce fuel consumption by around 10 per cent with up to half of your city driving possible in electric mode if it works as promised.

Citroën was keen to show us the C3 alongside the ë-C3 before the Paris Olympics made transportation logistics a challenge, and as a result the software was not quite finished on the pre-production cars we drove. We’ll put the brake light warning messages and a few other glitches we encountered in both cars down to this. Hopefully these little quirks will get ironed out by the time the cars arrive with customers towards the end of the year. All Citroëns come with a three-year manufacturer warranty for defective parts which can be extended at an additional cost for added peace of mind.

The C3 will come with lane departure warnings, driver attention alerts, hill start assistance, a speed limiter and cruise control, speed limit detection, and emergency braking. We can’t tell you where they rank on the scale of helpful to intrusive as the pre-production cars we tried had all these features disabled, so we’ll have to wait until we get our hands on the cars in the UK to see how Citroën configures them. However, all C3s have six airbags and LED front headlights. On MAX trim you’ll also get a reversing camera and front fog lights, though you’ll have to wait for the hybrid if you want this option. There’s no blind spot monitoring on offer, but the shape of the C3 offers good visibility all round so you won’t miss it too much.

The C3 is very comfortable and impressively refined for a small car. While the little tags on the inside of the doors instructing you to ‘be cool’, ‘have fun’, ‘feel good’ and ‘be happy’ are perhaps a little twee, there’s appealing joie de vivre about the C3’s interior. Money has been spent where it counts and, yes, some of the plastics feel rather flimsy, but the textured fabric on the dashboard and contrast seating materials creates a light and airy atmosphere. Though not silent like the electric model, only the tiniest rumble of the petrol engine is noticeable within the C3 and there’s very little road or wind noise either. The only thing disrupting the peace was the piercing tick of the indicator, so we hope this was just a pre-production feature. The new boxier shape allows for extra space and a higher roofline gives decent amounts of headroom for both front and rear passengers. While arguably the new C3 verges on being another small crossover, Citroën is adamant that it’s simply SUV-like. It retains an almost identical footprint to the previous model and feels compact out on the road. The Advanced Comfort seats are just the right amount of squidgy and supportive while the Advanced Comfort suspension cushions you from imperfections in the road. The boot offers a generous 310 litres of space easily capable of swallowing up the weekly shop or a handful of small suitcases. It does have a very large lip making it tricky to load and unload heavier items or for four-legged friends to jump in and out, though.

The petrol C3 is only available with entry-level PLUS trim. This comes with parking sensors, alloy wheels, a 10.25-inch central touchscreen with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and two-tone paint in a choice of five colours with customisable clips adding a streak of colour to the front and side of the car. There’s no fancy colourful driver’s display, instead all the information is shown on a thin digital strip in your line of sight above the small, tactile steering wheel. While Citroën calls this a head-up display it’s not projected onto the windscreen the way you might expect, but it is functional if not futuristic. If you are after a few extra creature comforts you can choose MAX trim, but you’ll need to wait for the hybrid C3 or opt for the electric ë-C3. This gains sat-nav, wireless phone charging, climate control, privacy glass in the back, heated front seats, heated steering wheel and a heated windscreen. Refreshingly both trim levels have physical temperature controls. We like the thoughtful finishing touches including the pocket for your phone in the back of the front seats and the graphic of iconic Citroëns in glove compartment adding to the fun factor. Possibly the only thing you might miss is a keyless entry and start function but, overall, the C3 strikes a good balance between features and cost, achieving that appealing low asking price without forgoing the essentials.

If the C3 was a piece of music it would be an upbeat bubble-gum pop song, changing key as you work through the gears. The plucky little 1.2-litre turbocharged engine produces a respectable 100 horsepower and while the acceleration is nothing to write home about, the C3 is perfectly nippy around town. Its nicely weighted pedals and light but direct steering mean you’ll be more than happy to take on city traffic and the manual handbrake adds to the simplistic charm. Drop a gear or two and the C3 will comfortably get up to motorway speeds and cruise along in sixth gear. Sitting higher up, the C3 leans a bit in corners, but the C3 is easy and fun to drive making it a good all-rounder. In due course the petrol C3 will be joined by a hybrid capable of short bursts of all-electric driving and we look forward to finding out how it compares.