Citroen C4 Aircross New For 2013

Published Date: 15th Jan 2013

Citroen is hoping to grab a piece of the compact SUV market from the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, Ford Kuga and the increasingly popular Skoda Yeti with the new Citroen C4 Aircross – shown for the first time at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show the vehicle should be available early 2013.

As with it's big brother the larger C-crosser, Citroen has teamed up with Mitubishi to build the Aircross, which should make for a very reliable vehicle, beyond the outer shell the Aircross is fundementally a Mitsubishi ASX, however Citroen have worked extrememly hard to bring the Citroen flavour and eye-catching looks with a lot of the styling taken from the C4 and DS4, the interior in particluar looks like an 'upgraded' ASX with improved materials and build with soft-touch finishing on the dashboard and doors and it has a nice look and feel.

Leg and head room in the front is very generous, with enough room to stretch out and relax on long drives. Rear seat passengers have slighlty less room, but it still should be ample room for kids and average size adults.

Boot space is generous, 416 litres which can be extended to 1,193 litres when the rear seats are folded down. A ski port is built into the seat to allow stowage of longer objects that would otherwise require the seats to be folded down.

The multi-link suspension absorbs bumps well and the steering is a tad heavier than you might expect but then this adds to the sporty feel. In the all-wheel-drive model, a switch in the centre of the car allows the driver to select either 2 wheel-drive or 4 wheel-drive to suit varying driving conditions.

The entry point engines are expected to be a 1.6-litre 114bhp petrol unit and a 1.8-litre HDi turbodiesel option offering 148bhp with CO2 emmissions expected to be lower than average for a car in it's class and with official fuel economy figures of 51.4mpg it is expected to be a welcome addition to the compact SUV market.