'Aut disce aut discede. C4' Thus ended my affair with Latin. After three years of compulsory lessons I was told in my end-of-year report 'Either learn or leave'. So I did: next term I switched to French, at which I excelled, and the rest, as they say, is Le History.
I can't say I was heartbroken; in the words of Mark Twain, I would rather decline two drinks than one Latin verb. But I was a little chastened by the appended 'C4'. Under the school system, in which A1 was the best-possible mark, C4 was equivalent to 'Nil points'. So when Citroen offered me a chance to test its new C4, I was pre-conditioned to expect something less than a best-in-class performance.
How wrong can you be? Indeed, far from scoring 'Nil points' in the recent Car of the Year awards, the C4 racked-up a convincing 267 points; a result that netted the Citroen second place, ahead of its main rivals, the Ford Focus and the Vauxhall Astra. The winner was the Toyota Prius, a low-volume, petrol-electric car that apparently scooped the claret jug on account of its environmental credentials. The new BMW 1 Series scored a mere 83 points. So even if the C4 was denied the ultimate trophy, it nonetheless proved itself 'best-in-class', unlike yours truly.
The C4 is offered in two distinct, and distinctive body styles: three-door coupe, and five-door hatchback. Depending on the model, engine options comprise five petrol units with outputs ranging from 90 to 180 bhp, and three diesel engines in the range 92 to 138 bhp. In general, the 5-door models are aimed at a more traditional market and consequently tend towards comfort, although, in reality, the model specifications differ little from their sporting, Coupe, counterparts. The Coupe is offered in VT, VTR, VTR PLUS, and VTS trim, and the 5-door hatchback in broadly similar LX, VT, SX and Exclusive trims. I drove the 2.0-litre, 180 bhp VTS Coupe.
I chose the Coupe, not least because of its looks, which are centred on the tailgate, which is glazed in two planes: one section forming the rearmost part of the roof, the other taking the form of a vertical rear window. The tailgate is hinged ahead of the glazed roof panel and thus an enormous aperture is created when the tailgate is open.
The tailgate's appearance is reminiscent of one or two iconic coupes, and it lifts the C4 into a styling genre of its own, and commonplace it's not. But the tailgate is just one of a number of innovations that position the C4 ahead of its rivals.
Take, for example, the steering wheel. Only the rim moves, the boss remains stationary. That means all the function buttons it contains are in a fixed position, which is handy, as there are up to four discrete clusters: audio controls, cruise control and speed limiter, navigation controls (optional), and multi-function display controls.
In common with a few other cars, the digital speedo is contained within a centrally mounted translucent display, which also includes a fuel gauge, water temperature gauge, odometer, speed-limiter settings, and so on. Nothing new there, except there is: the translucent display is light-sensitive, which means that it is always sharply legible, regardless of light conditions.
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