AS GOOD AS NEW
CITROEN C4 CACTUS
This eye-catching SUV-cum-hatchback is worth a look. Mark Pearson does just that
I t’s a bit confusing, the history of the C4 Cactus. The first cuddly incarnation arrived in 2014 as a quirky, Airbump-laden small SUV. It was designed in the Citroën idiom of old to stand out from the crowd, but it also offered practical, comfortable and fuelefficient motoring. It sold on design alone, though, because it looked like nothing else and came in a range of bright colours that contrasted neatly with those protrusions on its flanks. A facelift in 2018 ushered in a much sharper but less cute-looking car, with the Airbumps minimised and a much more mainstream approach, and in the process it became marketed as a regular family hatchback rather than an SUV. It was retired this year and its place was taken in the order books by the new C4, a model that previously had been a hatchback but is now marketed as an SUV.Clear? Good. Then let’s continue.