Craig's Cars: Citroën C4 Cactus

What should I know?

The C4 Cactus weighs 200 kg less than the normal C4 and starts at £12,990. Its design certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed. Despite being a Marmite car (you’re either going to love it or hate it), it has one the following awards (amongst others):

Production Car of the Year – Car Design News
Small Hatchback of the Year – UK Car of the Year Awards 2015
Most Beautiful Interior – 30th International Automobile Festival, Paris

CITROËN CEO, LINDA JACKSON
Hatchback of the Year – BBC TopGear Magazine
Best Crossover – Next Green Car Awards
Small SUV (less than £16,000) – What Car? 2015

Interior

All models come with the glorious 7″ touchscreen Touch Drive system which is used to control functions such as radio, Bluetooth® (Feel and Flair models only) and climate control, as well as DAB digital radio, RDS radio and an MP3 player with an aux-in socket and 4 speakers, Cruise Control, 12V connector, rear garment hooks, steering wheel-mounted controls, hinged rear windows (yes, these are on all trims!) and front electric windows. Step up to mid-spec Feel (from base Touch) to add a leather steering wheel, air conditioning and Bluetooth®. Top-spec Flair will get you a front armrest.

The door handles are said to be inspired by premium luggage handles. They’ll take some getting used to, but let’s be honest, what’s wrong with them?

Sofa-style front seats are standard on ETG versions only with an aircraft-style manual handbrake. Due to the lack of necessity of a gear stick, Citroën has opted for the ‘Easy Push’ gear selector to save space – it’s an arrangement of three buttons on the lower centre console with ‘D’, ‘R’ and ‘N’.

Practicality in the rear means a 358 litre boot which extends to 1170 litres with the rear seats folded. Up front, the 8.5 litre glovebox is opened from the top of the dashboard and is referred to as the Top Box. This has been made possible thanks to the passenger’s airbag which has been moved to the ceiling.

Also in the ceiling, or should I say roof, is the large panoramic glass sunroof which protects the car’s occupants against harmful sun rays giving the equivalent of category 4 sunglasses.

The interior trim options available are:

Exterior

On base-spec Touch, expect LED DRLs (Daytime Running Lights), height-adjustable halogen headlights, electrically adjustable door mirrors and 15″ ‘Clip’ wheel covers (PureTech 75) or 16″ ‘Corner’ wheel covers (PureTech 82 and BlueHDi 100). Step up to Feel for gloss black roof bars and 16″ anthracite ‘Square’ alloys, or top-spec Flair for front fog lights, tinted rear windows, heated door mirrors and 17″ diamond cut ‘Cross’ alloys. Airbump® technology helps absorb minor impacts.

Take a look at these 3 pictures that Citroën uses to advertise Airbump® technology.

The ‘Magic Wash’ windscreen wipers are designed to reduce the amount of liquid you need to use by 50% by having the nozzles built in to the wipers themselves.

There are 10 body colours to choose from as well as 4 Airbump® colours and 6 wheel designs.

: Body Colours

: Airbump® Colours

: Wheel Designs

Safety

Standard on every C4 Cactus right across the range is ABS with Electronic Brakeforce Distribution and Emergency Braking Assist, ESC, Cruise Control with speed limiter, TPMS (Tyre Pressure Monitoring System), driver, front passenger, front lateral and curtain airbags, front seat belt pretensioners, unfastened seatbelt warning on all seats, two ISOFIX mounting points in rear, electronic child locks, a warning triangle (stored under front seat), remote central locking with deadlocks and a Transponder immobiliser. Additionally, Hill Start Assist helps prevent you from rolling back on tricky hill starts on all models with the exception of PureTech 75 and 82 engines.

Packs

Some of the available packs include: Airdream Pack means you get 15″ wheels with ‘Clip’ wheel covers and just 82 g/km of CO2, though it’s only available on the BlueHDi 100 diesel engine. (£0 for Feel with ‘BlueHDi 100’)

Auto Pack will provide automatic air conditioning, automatic lights and windscreen wipers and an additional USB socket (in the Top Box glove compartment). (£395 for Feel)

City Camera Pack includes a colour reversing camera and rear parking sensors. (£395 for Feel)

The Feel City Park Pack has front parking sensors, gap measurement, Park Assist (self-parking feature) and front fog lights in addition to the City Camera Pack (above). (£595 for Feel)

Flair City Park Pack, however, has just front parking sensors, gap measurement and Park Assist. (£325 for Flair)

And finally, the Navigation and Hi-Fi Pack adds eMyWay sat nav and a Hi-Fi upgrade with 6 speakers, a 16GB Jukebox and ARKAMYS digital amplifier. (£495 for Feel)

Options

Pay £50 to have either white or red door mirrors to contrast with the body and Airbump® colours.

Another £50 will change the roof bars to a gloss white colour (as opposed to gloss black), or you can remove them for free.

Across the C-pillar between the rear window and boot is an empty body-coloured space which can be brought to life with a strip across the bottom with ‘Cactus’ written on it, for a grand price of £0. Colour options are a gloss black strip with either chocolate or grey lettering, a red strip with black lettering, or a white strip with black lettering.

Air conditioning, an option which would only need to be added to Touch trim as it’s standard on Feel and Flair, is £495.

If you want a space saver spare wheel, it’ll be £75 for any trim as it’s not included by default.

Here’s the latest Citroën C4 Cactus advert:

Engines and Transmissions

There are 3 petrol engines and 2 turbo-diesels as well as manual and automatic transmissions. They are as follows:

A ‘PureTech 75’ 3-cylinder 1.2 litre petrol engine capable of 61.4 mpg and 105 g/km CO2 managing 0-62 mph in 12.9 secs. This is a 5-speed manual.

There’s the ‘PureTech 82’ 3-cylinder 1.2 litre petrol engine. The 5-speed manual manages 61.4 mpg and 105-107 g/km CO2 doing the 0-62 mph sprint in the same 12.9 secs. The 5-speed automatic ETG S&S does 65.7 mpg and emits 98-100 g/km CO2, but it takes 15.0 secs for it to reach 62 mph.

The third petrol engine is the ‘PureTech 110 S&S’, again a 3-cylinder 1.2 litre unit capable of 60.1 mpg and 107 g/km CO2. This is the quickest from 0-62 mph at 9.3 secs.

The first turbo-diesel is the ‘e-HDi 92 ETG6’ and as the name suggests, it’s a 6-speed ETG automatic transmission. It’s a 1.6 litre 4-cylinder unit emitting 92-94 g/km CO2 and achieving 78.5-80.7 mpg – 0-62 mph takes 11.4 secs.

The super-economial second turbo-diesel engine, the ‘BlueHDi 100’ is the same 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine paired with a 5-speed manual ‘box. Emitting 87-89 g/km CO2 and running at 83.1 mpg doesn’t sound all that good, but then with the Airdream Pack, you can achieve 91.1 mpg and 82 g/km CO2. However you spec your ‘BlueHDi 100’ it will take 10.7 secs to do 0-62 mph.

Tech Specs

All Cactai come with a 50 litre (11 gallon) fuel tank apart from the ‘BlueHDi 100’ which has 5 litres (1.1 gallons) less.

The turning circle regardless of trim or specification is 10.9 metres, with 3.02 turns from full lock to full lock.

You can only load 80 kg onto the roof of a Cactus, and the maximum braked towing weight is 720, 725 or 825 kg depending on the engine, whereas the maximum unbraked towing weight is 520, 525, 545, 565 or 570 kg.

The kerb weight of the car ranges from 925 to 1070 kg.

Here’s a video by Citroën pointing out some of the unique design features.

Pricing

Touch starts at £12,990 with the ‘PureTech 75’ engine, Feel starts at £14,690 with the ‘PureTech 82 manual’ engine, and top-spec Flair starts at £16,090 coupled with the same ‘PureTech 82 manual’ engine.

With the ‘Elect 4 Personal Lease’ programme the new C4 Cactus can be yours for£165-£249 a month. You can also pay for it with finance with 3 years’ 0% APR representative or through PCP with 4.9% APR. All new Citroëns come with a 3 year warranty package, a 12 year anti-perforation warranty and a 3 year paint warranty, though it’s worth noticing that the 3 year warranty package is only unlimited for 2 years with the option of a free additional year of dealer-provided warranty limited to cars with less than 60,000 miles.

Rivals

The Citroën C4 Cactus is a crossover, so it can be compared to sister company Peugeot’s 2008 and budget firm Dacia’s Duster as well as Dacia’s owner’s Renault Captur.

Let’s take a look at some statistics.

As regards boot space with the rear seats folded down, the Dacia Duster is the winner with 1570-1604 litres in 4WD guise or 1636 litre in 2WD guise. The Renault Captur takes second place with 1235 litres. Offering 1194 litres is the Peugeot 2008, closely followed by the Citroën C4 Cactus with 1170 litres.

With rear seats in place, they still take the same places with the Duster offering 475 litres (2WD) or 408-443 litres (4WD), Captur (377 litres), 2008 (360 litres) and Cactus (358 litres).

The Cactus is the most efficient returning 91.1 mpg, followed by the Captur (76.4 mpg), the 2008 (74.3) and the Duster (a dismal 56.5 mpg in comparison).

With Dacia being a budget brand, even offering Britain’s cheapest car, it’s obvious that the Duster wins at £9,495, followed by the Cactus at £12,990, the 2008 (£13,195) and the Captur (£14,195).

The Cactus is meant to be a crossover, giving us great expectations of mild off-road ability. This just simply isn’t the case, as with just 130 mm of ground clearance, it’s the loser (with just 10 mm more ground clearance than a regular C4!). Next is the 2008 with 165 mm followed by the Captur with 200 mm. The winner, then, is the Duster. It marginally wins with 205-210 mm but nonetheless, it’s at least 75 mm more than the C4 Cactus.