CITROEN C3 AIRCROSS

C3 supermini's chunky sibling achieves a practicality first among B-SUVs

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Europe’s modal-average, typical new car has for several years now almost certainly been a supermini-based, B-segment SUV.

Given the soaring popularity of the likes of the Ford Puma, Nissan Juke, Vauxhall Mokka, Renault Captur and more, it’s remarkable enough that there are any ‘firsts’ left to accomplish in the class. And yet Citroën is laying claim to one with the second-generation C3 Aircross.

This new, higher-riding, marginally tougher-looking, stretched version of the C3 is the first car in its segment – a pumped-up supermini segment, let’s not forget - to offer seven seats. It doesn’t do so as standard and yet, still, it becomes a highly unusual prospect among new cars: one to combine a footprint that’s narrowly under 4.4 metres in length with three rows of seating for those who have a use for them.

The usual Tardis-like analogies are clearly invited. Seven seats in cars of comparable length, such as the Dacia Jogger, are offered elsewhere, but none among cars identified less as MPVs and more as pint-sized SUVs. Now for the Autocar road test tape measure to bear witness to how much usable space there really is in this car, and whether it’s a packaging marvel, an exercise in futility – or something in between.

Like the smaller C3, it can be had as an electric ë-C3 Aircross; as a conventional turbocharged petrol; or as a 48V ‘self-charging’ petrol-electric hybrid. It was the last version we elected to test.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING

The material differences between the regular C3 and this C3 Aircross are quite subtle but certainly aren't just window dressing. Just as the 2017 first-generation car was to its equivalent C3, this is apparently a very close relation - much closer, say, than a Peugeot 2008 ever has been to a 208. The cars clearly share plenty of body panels, no doubt much of their body-in-white unitary steel chassis and a lot of interior parts.