Let's face it, the Citroen C3 Picasso is a box. It's a French box, so it's stylish, practical and just a little bit quirky, but it's still a box.
And that means it'll do a lot of things that sexy little two-door you've got your eye on won't - such as ferry at least half the under-14 soccer team to practice, pick up your mother-in-law's new microwave oven or, at a pinch, deliver five huge doggy-beds to the SPCA.
It won't go round Kyalami in 1min42 but it'll get you in and out of some very tight spots thanks to its 10m turning circle and driving it is absolutely effortless - which is both good and bad.
It's good around town because the power steering is very light and at city speeds you don't notice how vague it is, especially around the centre point.
It's good because the clutch takes up with buttery smoothness and even routine gear changes are almost imperceptible to passengers and the ultra-light accelerator pedal lends itself to accurate control in stop-go traffic.
But it's bad on the open road because the vague steering doesn't "go to sleep" at cruising speeds and the sensitive throttle makes it difficult to hold a steady speed (thank goodness for cruise control!).
But mostly it's bad because the rubbery shift action is so vague you just push it in the right direction and hope for the best - it always goes in but you don't know that until afterwards.
Citroen says the quiet, smooth-running, 1598cc four-cylinder is good for 88kW at 6000rpm and 160Nm at 4200. Nevertheless, we had to rev it hard through the gears to accelerate from 0-100 in 13sec and we couldn't get anywhere near Citroen's claimed 10.9sec.
True top speed, according to Garmin, was 172km/h, also well shy of the maker's quoted 188, with 182 on the digital speedometer (but full marks to Citroen for a speedo error of only 2.2 percent).
The standing kilometre was disposed of in 34.6sec, not far off the maker's claimed 32.9, but you have to plan overtaking manoeuvres - our Picasso took nearly 10sec to accelerate from 80-120km/h and 13.5sec from 100-140km/h.
Braking performance was creditable with our five emergency stops from 100km/h averaging 3.23sec, and the hazard lights came on automatically each time, which is a strong safety factor.
Fuel consumption over the week we had the Picasso, including performance testing, averaged 8.7 litres/100km, but it's not a car you want to drive fast. It seems to settle down and cruise best at about 100km/h so that's what we did, most of the time.
LIGHT AND AIRY
Perhaps the C3's best feature, dynamically speaking, is its ride - always a strong point of French automakers. The Picasso has conventional Macpherson struts in front and a torsion beam at the rear but they deliver a quiet, supple and immensely smooth ride with minimal body roll, worthy of a much more expensive car.
Add to that very comfortable seats and it adds up to a pleasant, if rather unhurried, way to get from A to B.
The cabin is light and airy, seeming huge in proportion to the car's overall length of less than 4.1m. The high roof and rather upright seats provide generous leg and headroom, the huge glazed area superb visibility.
Modern crash-testing criteria sometimes produce cars with very heavy A pillars- so much so that a motorcycle can vanish behind them.
Citroen got around this by splitting each A pillar in two and inserting a large triangular quarter window. It works - the Picasso placed third in a recent Which? Car survey of the cars with the biggest and smallest blind spots.
LOTS OF STORAGE
You actually step up, rather than sit down into the Picasso and the commanding view is reassuring as well as fun, especially in traffic. The gear lever is on the centre stack and the centre console is very low - which is great for knee-room but presents the car's one ergonomic failure: the parking-brake lever is way down on the floor and can be difficult to reach when you're wearing your seat belt.
The fascia seems to stretch into the distance with a deep binnacle housing all the instrumentation, so far away that you can't reach it while sitting normally.
The displays are an odd mix of liquid crystal for the driving instruments and red LED's for infotainment and aircon but they're big, easily legible, and much closer to the driver's sightline than most.
And then there's the storage; as on most French MPV's, there's lots of it, starting with a pop-top box on top of the fascia, oddments trays at waist level in front of driver and front passenger, a huge glove-compartment lid that opens an absurdly small box, a drawer under the front passenger seat, a big pocket in each door and a map pocket behind each front seat.
The boot holds 385 litres with the parcel shelf in place but there's another 115 litres hidden under the removable floor. Or you can drop the 66/33 split rear-seat backs (the squabs retract into the floor so the backs fold absolutely flat) to give you a two-seat van with a cargo capacity of 1506 litres.
Which is a big box.
VERDICT
Citroen has done a superb job of thinking inside the box with the C3 Picasso. It's not very fast (it doesn't need to be) but it's effortless to drive (which an MPV should be), impressively versatile (which an MPV has to be) and very comfortable, which an MPV should be but all too often isn't.
Add a little French flair and you have a winning combination.
CITROEN C3 PICASSO SPECIFICATIONS
ENGINE
Cylinders:
4.
Capacity:
1598cc.
Fuel system:
Fuel-injection with turbocharger.
Max power/torque:
88kW at 6000rpm/160Nm at 4200rpm.
TRANSMISSION
Type:
Five-speed manual gearbox; front-wheel drive.
SUSPENSION
Front/rear:
McPherson strut with anti roll bar / Torsion beam with anti-roll bar.
STEERING
Type:
Power-assisted rack-and-pinion.
Steering-column adjustment:
Height and reach.
BRAKES
Front/rear:
Discs, ventilated at front, with anti-lock and electronic brake assist.
WHEELS/TYRES
Rims:
16" spoked alloy.
Tyres:
195/55 radials.
DIMENSIONS/WEIGHT
Length:
4078mm.
Width:
1730mm.
Height:
1624m.
Mass:
1365kg.
FUEL TANK/CONSUMPTION
50 litres/8.7 litres/100km.
178km/h (measured, at sea level).
ACCELERATION
0-100km/h:
13.4sec (measured, at sea level).
STANDARD EQUIPMENT
Remote central locking, trip data computer, aircon, cruise control, power windows and mirrors, automatic lights and windscreen wipers, multifunction steering wheel, six-speaker sound system, 12V socket, Bluetooth connectivity, USB port, scented air freshener.
SAFETY EQUIPMENT
Six crash bags, antilock braking with electronic brake assist, auto hazard lights.
MANUFACTURER SUPPORT
Three-year or 100 000km warranty, four-year or 60 000km service plan.
SERVICE INTERVALS
20 000km.
Toyota Verso 1.6S- R243 300