FEELING BLUE

Matt Allan sends our quirky long-termer away to take a hard look at itself

The time has come to bid a frustrated farewell to our Citroen C4 Cactus. Frustrated because the Cactus comes so close to being a great car.

For a start, it looks brilliant. Some people hate it, but not me. I love it, psychedelic blue paint and all.

The Puretech 110 engine is a peach. It’s lively, free-revving and pulls strongly. It’s also smooth and quiet at cruise and returns mid-to-high 40s economy.

Also praiseworthy is the ride. Eschewing rivals’ sporty leanings, the Citroen offers a smooth comfortable ride in exchange for a bit of extra lean on twisty roads.

And the Cactus scores highly on space. Four adults will fit easily into its airy-feeling cabin and there’s enough room in the boot for a week-long holiday’s worth of luggage.

But sadly, all that good work isundone by a form-over-function approach to the cabin.

Even if you can cope with the “sofa-like” seats and their complete lack of support, too many everyday elements of driving are frustratingly out of reach.

The “infotainment” system provides hours of annoyance. It’s slow to respond and illogically laid out. Trying to do something simple like find a radio station, pick an album on an ipod or programme the sat nav are exercises in lateral thinking. It’s almost as if the designers looked at VW and Nissan and thought “let’s do the opposite”.

Hiding the heater controls in a tiny panel on the touchscreen, hiding the handbrake under the armrest and ditching the rev counter altogether in favour of a “shift up” light all reek of someone thinking about how the car looks rather than how it’s used.

If everything about the car was poorly thought out I wouldn’t be so bothered – a bad car is a bad car – but there are enough great aspects of the Cactus to make its flaws even more annoying.

Nonetheless, the Cactus is selling well as it is but hopefully when the time for a refresh comes the people in charge will think a bit more about those driving it and a bit less about those looking at it. OVERALL RATING