Citroen C4 VTS Review 2005

It's not perfect, but Citroen's C4 VTS coupe looks fabulous, goes like a bull out of a gate, is very well equipped and represents very good value for money.

It gets my vote as the best thing to come out of the French thoroughbred stable yet.

We were impressed with the style and performance of this car when it was launched earlier this year and our recent stint behind the wheel has only served to confirm this impression.

Apart from the distinctive styling, the most striking feature of the C4 is the steering wheel with its fixed centre hub.

Believe it or not, the original Citroen 4C had a fixed hub too way back in the 1920s.

Only the wheel itself rotates, the centre hub doesn't move which Citroen says allows it to host way more controls.

The steering wheel is divided into quadrants, with each quadrant responsible for a different function.

Top left is controls for the cruise and speed limiter, top right is sound system, bottom right the trip computer controls and bottom left is devoted to vehicle options such as air recycling.

The centrally located LCD digital style speedo is easy to read in any light and we reckon should become a benchmark for other manufacturers.

In fact, after driving a couple of cars in the past few weeks with digital speedos, we prefer them to the standard, difficult to read analogue units found in most cars.

The VTS is powered by a 2.0-litre 130kW engine that can propel the car from 0-100km/ h in 8.3 seconds.

A five-speed manual transmission is stan- dard.

We found it necessary to feather the clutch for a clean take off.

After we got over our initial excitement, we discovered the doors of the coupe are quite large and heavy making opening and closing them a chore.

Access to the rear seat is via a tilt and slide mechanism, but unless you make a point of pushing the front seat all the way forward, it has a habit of sliding back again which can be really annoying.

The ride is fine on smooth pavement, but get off the freeway and on to some of our secondary back roads and it quickly becomes choppy.

We're not saying the suspension doesn't do its job, but it does not do a very good a job of isolating passengers from bumps.

The VTS comes with a plethora of standard equipment.

Six airbags are standard and the car has a five star crash rating.

It is also designed to reduce injury to pedestrians.

Our car was equipped with the optional JBL sound system which is another $1000 but one of the best units that we have heard.

It is also MP3 friendly so that means you can fit more than 150 songs on single CD.

Citroen C4 VTS is priced from $36,900 plus on road costs.