A short while ago, the Citroen Saxo, the old-style miniature Citroen run-about, appeared rather uncomfortably close to the top of a list of cars whose owners said they wouldn't recommend them to their friends. That's not the kind of news a car wants to hear, though one clings optimistically, on the Saxo's behalf, to the thought that some of those allegedly dissatisfied owners were not so much actively un-recommending their Saxos as keeping quiet because they think it vulgar and boring to talk enthusiastically about your own car.
Whatever the truth of the matter, here comes the all-new Citroen C2, which seems to be pitched into the market as a Saxo substitute and can perhaps try to triumph where the Saxo fell short on word-of-mouth. Does it manage it? Is this a car to recommend to your friends? Well, for me, perhaps not. In fact, I'm not sure I would recommend it to my enemies.
This has more to do with the way the C2 drives than the way it looks, though the way it looks is itself fairly hard work. From the front bumper back to the door handles, the car is visibly connected to its bigger sister, the furiously curvy and lovable C3, albeit with that car's cheerful headlamps replaced by chunky, square units which look like something out of the Lego box.
From the door handles back, however, a completely different design project seems to be going on. What connection does the shape and scale of the rear side windows have with the shape and scale of the front side windows? It looks as though a C3 has been mounted from behind by a smaller, possibly Japanese vehicle, and in the frenzy of their mating the two have become fused, insect-like, in some extraordinary new, ever-humping hybrid.
I drove the Furio version, which comes with a 1.4-litre engine and a set of lad-friendly skirts and alloys, to the point where it appears to be just begging to be joy-ridden through the nearest department store window. But then you depress the accelerator and realise that joy is unlikely to come into it, thanks to Citroen's SensoDrive system.
This is the cunning device by which what is fundamentally a two-pedal automatic car can also be driven manually, either by knocking the simplified gear-shift backwards and forwards, or by tapping on the PlayStation-style paddles mounted at the back of the steering wheel. Unfortunately, these manual gear changes, though clutchless, are by no means lurch-less and, in fact, are only OK if you don't mind headbutting the windscreen every time you shift up.
As for the automatic gearbox, it is one of the worst it has ever been my privilege to work with, given to excruciatingly long lags between second and third in particular and prone to random moments of disquieting powerlessness. It also, just like the manual set-up, tosses you about in the cabin like a puppet on a stick, and periodically squashes your nose flat against the glass just to remind you who's boss.
And, incidentally, if the car had been mine, I would have sent it straight back to the dealers and asked them to have a word with the brakes, too. The car kept interpreting the lightest brush of foot against pedal as an invitation to perform an emergency stop. All in all, driving a C2 has much in common with clinging to the back of a kangaroo that has just been shot with an air-rifle.
Still, in the C2's favour, you can get one for a shade under £7,000, if you do without fripperies and can put up with a sexed-down 1.1-litre engine. The split tailgate, as opposed to a standard, top-hinged hatchback door, is fun. And in most models you can force the rear seats back into the boot to create extra legroom - handy for those times when you have passengers who don't have anything inconvenient with them, such as luggage.
Plus the C2 is built on the C3's platform. And the C3 is, according to Citroen, "the safest supermini in Europe". Of course that doesn't mean the C2 is as safe as the C3, even if it does come with a liberal scattering of airbags and hazard lights that click on as soon as the car feels you rapidly decelerating in that "I'm about to rear-end the car in front of me" kind of way. And actually, to be frank, I have felt safer in a Smart car. And remember that, if you collide with a squirrel in a Smart car travelling at anything faster than 17mph, you are likely to come off worse than the squirrel.
Nevertheless, you have got to hand it to Citroen for identifying a key area of the modern market and plugging away at it. This is the third new mini that they have put out in the past year, the others being the C3 and the fabulously batty, multi-purpose C3 Pluriel, which you can convert from a hatchback to a spider using your bare hands. But those two are both genuine conversation pieces in a way one fears the C2 may struggle to be. Will people talk? And what will they say if they do?
The lowdown: Citroen C2 Furio 1.4l
Price: £8,995
Top speed: 105mph
Acceleration: 0-62mph in 14.1 secs
Consumption: 48 mpg
At the wheel: Crocodile Dundee
On the stereo: Men at Work
En route for: Bondi Beach
