Confort sans frontières
Citroën bids to recapture past glories in making plushness paramount in its latest C4 Cactus
A subject for an Octane First Drive doesn’t necessarily have to be fast, exotic or expensive: you should already know that we are more imaginative than that. So, if a manufacturer famous for doing things differently and renowned for comfort – that most unfashionable attribute for those who like to burn rubber – is once again staking its reputation on that, then we take notice.
Comfort, says Citroën, is the new cool. It can be old cool, too; who doesn’t like the sensation of insulated, turbulence-free serenity in a Series I Jaguar XJ6, a RollsRoyce Silver Shadow or indeed a Citroën DS or CX? Feeling the way a car follows a road is good, of course, but feeling every hole, lump and wave in that road is not.
Please meet the first Citroën to feature the new Advanced Comfort philosophy: the revised C4 Cactus. Its two major planks are suspension with ‘Progressive Hydraulic Cushions’ and seats with cushions of a different sort, an unusually thick layer of soft foam beneath quilted rectangles and on top of firmer foam for good location and support. The effect is meant to be like lying on a particularly luxurious and supportive bed, except of course you are sitting. To reduce exterior annoyances, extra sound insulation and thicker window glass also feature.
The original Cactus, launched in 2014, was the most individual-looking Citroën for quite some time. Its stark nose featured a giant double-chevron set in an otherwise plain panel, its flanks featured bash-proof ‘Airbumps’ – its pure, simple style was very appealing to anyone who wasn’t worried what the neighbours would think. The same went for the interior. This new one, in an effort to boost disappointing sales, has more ‘status’, so there’s more chrome, more conventionality and the Airbumps have shrunk. The original may yet prove to be a design classic by mid-century.
But the suspension is the big thing. For comparison purposes I arrived at the test drive in my Xantia, the last Citroën to have, in some versions such as mine, the original oleopneumatic suspension with no electronics. It’s much like a DS’s or a CX’s and the ride is mostly astonishing.
The C4’s PHCs are cleverly simple. Instead of regular rubber external bumpstops, which absorb energy then fling it back, the Cactus has dampers with spring-loaded auxiliary dampers incorporated at top and bottom, to cope with bump and rebound. The regular spring and damper rates are very soft, but when the PHCs are gradually brought into play the springing and damping rates rise.
So the Cactus is supple and fluid most of the time, with a surprisingly Xantia-esque feeling of rolling freely along the road, and speed bumps are neatly rounded off. But body roll is reined in, perhaps more than it needs to be, meaning that sometimes there’s a lateral wobble. Ultimately the old oleopneumatic system still feels slightly more fluid, but against that the Cactus steers more crisply.
For today’s disintegrating roads it’s a great system, relatively cheap to make and very Citroën. We’re comfortable with that.