A New Hatchback In The Town: Citroen C3

The French carmaker, Citroen entered the Indian market in 2019, last year the company launched the C5 Aircross SUV in India, which isn't performing well in the country in terms of sales, though the car has a lot of potential. The company is trying hard to make a space for themselves in the Indian market and now they are introducing the new C3 hatchback in India. Yes, a HATCHBACK! We got the opportunity to test drive the car in Goa before the official launch to give you the first drive review and here is what we think about it.

Now, this is the 4th generation C3 that is first being unveiled in India, considering the company’s expansion plans here in the country. Globally, C3 is among the company’s bestseller B-Hatch with around 5 million vehicles on road. 

Looks & Design

The new Citroen C3 is an absolute head turner; one cannot stop seeing the car without having a good glance at it. At the first look, the Citroen C3 from the front looks almost identical to the previously launched C5 Aircross SUV with a bit of a chrome touchup and dual daytime running lights (DRLs). Now Citroen has made it clear that this is a hatchback but the car sports an attitude of an SUV. The SUV attitude comes alive with a high bonnet, strong wheel arches, a 180 mm of high ground clearance or as the company likes to call it the flying carpet effect and a longer wheelbase of 2540 mm, which is usually seen in an SUV.

The cabin room inside the C3 is quite spacious and gives you a very comfortable driving experience with height adjustable driver’s seat. For the fellow passenger on the front and rear seats also, there is enough legroom with an impressive 1378 mm of shoulder room on the rear and offers 315-litre of boot space for your luggage needs. 

At the dashboard, one gets a 10-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Citroen connect technology features. The infotainment system is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Alongside is the monochrome digital instrument cluster that displays basic information. 

What’s Missing On The New C3

There is no rear wiper on the hatchback considering that India is a heavy summer monsoon country and no day/night IVRM which is a must have feature for most of the cars today. 

Engine

Now the Citroen C3 will be available in two engine options 1.2-litre naturally aspirated petrol and a 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine with a choice of 5-speed manual transmission and 6-speed manual transmission respectively. As of now, there is no diesel or automatic transmission option in the new C3, however, we might witness an automatic manual transmission option in the future.

PureTech 82 ps Vs PureTech 110 ps

Both the variants come with disc brakes at the front and drum brakes at the rear and electric-powered steering. The overall length of both the variants is 3981 mm and is 1733 mm in width without including side mirrors. 

Performance

The suspension on the hatchback does its job really well, even in bumpy road conditions, the car goes really smooth. However, during intense driving conditions, one might feel bumps on the front seats. While driving the car, our experience with both the variants was really good, but the 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine variant has an edge over the 1.2-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine variant. The turbo variant can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in around 10 seconds.

Colour Options

The new Citroen C3 is available in four monotone body colours as polar white, platinum grey, steel grey and zesty orange and six dual-tone colour options with a combination of all these four colours. Also, the new C3 comes with two interior trim colour options as anodized orange and anodized grey and 56 customisation options. 

Verdict

Overall, everything seems to be fine with the new Citreon C3, now to give this one a heads up or head down, really depends on the price point at which this hatchback will be introduced in India. We are expecting the price to be somewhere around Rs. 4.75 lakh for the base variant and around Rs. 5.50 lakh for the turbo engine variant. 

The pre-bookings of the car will begin on July 1, 2022 and the deliveries will begin on July 20, 2022, right after its launch the same day.