What is it?
Few cars have it easy these days, in a competition sense, but fewer still have it harder than those like the Citroën C3 Aircross - one of the more overtly leftfield contenders for supremacy in the unfathomably popular compact crossover segment.
Despite occupying a similar footprint to sales chart stalwarts such as the Ford Puma and Nissan Juke, it’s rarely mentioned in the same breath, leaning more heavily as it does on virtues of personalisation and quirkiness than outright panache or dynamic appeal.
But it’s an important car for its maker, second only in sales terms to the C5 Aircross SUV and Citroen C3 hatchback (with an impressive 340,000 units sold since launch in 2017), so its mid-life refresh for 2021 has bigger implications than its slightly more chiselled front end and revamped options list would imply.
There are, Citroën claims, more than 70 colour scheme configurations now available for its baby SUV, arriving alongside new Advanced Comfort seats, standard-fit LED headlights, added storage capacity and a larger infotainment touchscreen.
You can tell this latest iteration of the MPV-SUV chiefly by its more angular front end design and redesigned skidplate – or, if you’re really into your mass-market Citroëns, its pair of new alloy wheel designs and slimmer handbrake lever.
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When a decidedly car-oriented publication such as Autocar comes up with an opening gambit of "the unfathomably popular compact crossover segment" in a review of a compact crossover, you know you're not going to any insights into how the vehicle performs for its target market but you will be filled to the brim with observations on how it doesn't fit the template of Autocar's self-confessed limited perception. Isn't it about time that motoring journalists put some effort into fathoming why it is that the compact crossover segment is so popular and recognising that maybe, just maybe it's a sizeable chunk of the car-buying public? Then, and I know this is radical, you could review these motors in the light of what buyers in that segment actually want. Citroën are not the only ones who get so blithely dismissed.
Exterior, engines, even the handling is probably not as bad as made out - all fine. But the interior, no, just no.
There is flair, and there is silly for the sake of it.