A Tata Nexon owner checks out the Citroen C3

The vehicle has short overhangs and a healthy ground clearance. It should not be an issue driving the C3 over broken Indian roads.

BHPian arjab recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Me & wifey were walking down Park Street, Calcutta, to pick up our daughter from school, when we popped into the Citroen showroom as we had some time to kill before the school gave over.

There was a solo White & Orange C3, naturally aspirated version, on display.

First impressions:

• Decent build quality, uniform fit, finish, gap & flush. Even paint quality with no bubbling or "orange-peel" effects anywhere. I especially keep a keen eye at the potential slight colour mismatch between the surface of the plastic bumper and the sheet metal fender. In this car that was not visible at all.
• Excellent ingress and egress. Particularly at the front. It's almost a "walk in - walk-out" door aperture design. The front seats look very basic but offer very good support, particularly under - thigh. The bolstering and lower lumbar support also felt spot on. This was endorsed by the Miss'us too, (and she's a long time sufferer of low back pain)
• The Great Indian Automotive Media and The Great Indian Auto Enthusiast's brigade are slaughtering Citroen for having fitted "flap"-type Outer door handles. To my feeble mind and jurassic perceptions, the handles felt perfectly fitted, engaged and disengaged with a positive sounding click and worked flawlessly.
• Liked the cabin width and the horizontal couple distance between driver and passenger. You will not bang elbows or shoulders with your passenger.
• Large footwells and well spaced out A,B,C pedals. People with large boots should not have an issue.
• Excellent visibility with manageable blind spots around the "A"-pillar.
• The manually adjustable outside door mirrors are wide and do their intended task well.
• Rear seat is commodious, has very good under-thigh support and the cushioning is neither too soft or too hard. Both the front seats get seatback pockets for rear seat passengers to store things. The daylight opening, DLO, at the rear is sufficiently large enough and will not induce claustrophobic feelings to rear seat occupants.
• Boot looked fairly large with good enough space to take in a weekend's luggage for a family of three / four people. The shape of the boot is very practical to stuff things in.
• In the naturally aspirated version: the engine bay looked to have been designed to take in much larger engines. Based on a fleeting visual check: the engine mounts looked pretty hefty and overengineered for a 1.2 Litre's engine's weight.
• The vehicle has short overhangs and a healthy ground clearance. It should not be an issue driving the C3 over broken Indian roads.
• The floor mats and the boot mat - all available as genuine accessories looked and felt nice and hardy.

What could have been improved

• Addition of rear wash wipe. The upright rear windscreen will gather a lot of muck, particularly in the rains. From what i saw the rear windscreen "frit" area is package protected for a rear wash-wipe system integration. Citroen for some reason has omitted it. Does not even have an option.
• Electrically adjustable outside rear view mirrors. It is required because the cabin is wide and one has to lean over a bit too much to manually adjust the mirrors. Also the stability of the mirror surface in the case of an electrically adjustable mirror is greater and the mirror does not "shift" from its "user - set" position that frequently compared to a manually adjustable mirror.
• A simple, flick lever day-night inside rear view mirror.

Overall I like the car. It is simple, looks elegant, is very comfortable to sit in and feels refreshingly nice and simple.

Personally I am a person who like to own well performing, good handling vehicles which will age well over time. I do not need button clad steering wheels, huge television like displays, seats that jiggle and wiggle your nether regions before spewing streams of air; and i certainly do not want "talking cars" and that too in a ludicrous, nasal twang as to what it would and would not do to light up that bulb in your living room!

Most probably I will request for a test drive, once the dealership gets their 1.2 Turbo test drive vehicle and then take a call.

Citroen, please price this right.

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.