CITROEN C2 1.6i 16V VTS 3dr (2004)

Great idea for a first car, cheap and cheerful

This is actually my daughter’s car but I thought I’d give it a review on her behalf as I do use it a lot of the time. After much debate, we decided to get the VTS which is quite a sporty little thing and quite easy to drive quickly. It has quite an engaging drive also and is very easy to throw about in windy corners with really rather good steering.

We were originally looking at a Saxo but after reading a few safety-related horror stories, we decided this C2 would be a much safer bet. It’s difficult to explain but it’s also a very easy car to drive, you simply point the wheel and put your foot down, you get a good burst of power and away you go, I really like that about the car.

I think the quality of the car trumps the Saxo, it isn’t out of this world but its good enough, especially for a first car. The dash however is quite unique and because of this, actually really rather difficult to read which is a pain for obvious reasons. We rarely use this car for more than two people and its just as well because the space in the back is really minimal and the luggage space isn’t great although we’ve had no real reason to load it up fully.

As a first car, we needed something fairly cheap to run and I think it does this, we got a decent price, the insurance was reasonable, it has a good economy of about 40mpg and the service intervals are pretty wide.