The interior showcases seats covered in purple leather and felt that can swivel and be re-positioned to create a lounge and/or sleeping area. The passenger area also comes fitted with an HD TV screen and surround sound. Although there is plenty of lighting, there is a significant lack of windows in the passenger area, which for some may not be ideal. The driver’s seat resembles that of a circular pod almost completely separated from the rest of the vehicle. The quirky design extends to the passenger door which opens much like the door of a private jet where the top half lifts up while the bottom half drops to form a step.

The Tubik is powered by PSA’s new Hybrid4 system with a 160bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine up front and the battery/electric motor gubbins generating another 37bhp out the back. All four of the 22 inch wheels can be driven in 4wd mode.

The Tubik concept is set to be unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

I’m one of those people who’s always liked the French.  Their lack of sentimentality, and hence lack of diplomacy has always rubbed me up the right way.  I was on the Paris Metro once and being a bit lost, was waiting in line at an info kiosk to ask for some assistance.  In front of me was an American Family. The American Family.  The American Family with fanny packs and fat where other people from other nations don’t have fat.

AMERICAN FATHER (I won’t say American Dad, because that’s a great show):  ”Where’s the Arch of Triumph?  Excuse me.  Do you know where the Arch of TRY-UMPH is?”

The Frenchman behind the glass just gave a wonderful Gallic shrug.  I loved his reaction even more because I had just come from outside and the Arc D’Triomph was literally meters to the left up on the pavement.  But he wouldn’t budge, he just shrugged and I loved it.

What irritated me the most was that the American made absolutely no attempt at “hello” in ANY language, never mind French, and just launched a terrible attempt at pronouncing their most important landmark.

I approached the glass after the Americans wandered off muttering, and after a very bad Bon jour asked if I may proceed in English.  “Of course,” said the same guy who minutes earlier had been Jean-Pierre Le’Shrug.  He gave me directions in perfect English merely because I had made an effort – in his country – to converse with him. Like any nation, the French want you to understand them. To acknowledge them on their own terms.

So I was prepared to love the new Citroen C4 on its own terms. I was ready to be enveloped in its Frenchness.  I was ready to be smitten by the utterly daft, peculiar beings they can be.  I was ready to love it.  And at first I did.  Sitting in it, everything worked, but was a bit…off.

The gear lever looks like the top of a wine opener. Fittingly, because the man who made the gearbox was drunk and on leave apparently when he designed it via fax from a vineyard.  But more on that in a minute.  The level of luxury in here is truly exemplary.  There’s a French suaveness about it all.  The seats massage you, the display is brilliant and everything seems to work like it should.  It’s like learning the Parisien Underground. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

So far so good. I was feeling fully fluent in French.  Then I began to drive it, and this car doesn’t speak “DRIVE”. As in the part of the gearbox that makes the car go forwards consistently.

I nudged the wine opener backwards into A for Automatique I assume (you nudge it forward for reverse obviously) and the car really got moving with a hint of wheelspin.  Not bad… and then it felt like someone had half pulled the handbrake up as it wheezed its way into second.  Satellites don’t have this much delay.  It seriously felt like the car had tried to stop. It’s unnerving.

Remembering my French lessons, I automatiquelly assumed it was me making a hash of things.  I was quite obviously squeezing mayonnaise out of a tube onto a delicate croissant layered with roast beef from a tin in front of  Sarkozy’s wife while explaining why Zidane was shit and always had been.

This sort of thing had happened with my driving style before.  How can I put this.  I sometimes drive cars wrong. I drive Cadillacs like they’re speedboats at first and then realise how cool they are when you drive them like you’ve had three strokes, for instance.  Right, time for a new driving approach.  I’ll feather the accelerator, nice and smooth, none of this robot racing right foot and…second gear…clang!  I felt like the airbags should’ve deployed. It’s like you’ve driven into a shed.  Not one sturdy enough to stop you, but enough to let you know it was there.

It’s appalling this gearbox, truly appaling. I tried and tried and then eventually felt something I’ve never experienced before: Motion Sickness.  I’ve eaten left over cold pizza with a hangover on a yacht while people threw up around me from sea sickness and I scoffed at their weakness, but I actually felt ill after driving around in the C4 for a while.

Citroen claim it’s not an automatic and it’s not a manual; it’s something else.  Right. All they’ve achieved is making both types of gearbox worse.  Infinitely worse.  It seems in typical Citroen fashion they’ve blown the R&D budget on things like multi coloured LCD displays (you can choose from 8 hues of blue) and varying sounds made by your indicator instead of on things like the bloody gearbox.

Citroen’s eccentricity used to be reserved for design and that used to make them charming and cultish.  The C4 with it’s ESG auto/manual or whatever is not just annoying, it is quite literally the first auto I’ve felt was constantly about to stall, and that’s a real pity because the rest of it is everything a Citroen should be. Thank goodness you can still have a good old manual.

By Gavin Williams – OverdriveTV

The facelifted models come with a re-designed front end. Both the cars will be coming with the company’s new logo on the grille and LED daytime running lights. It also comes with revised tail lights and some interior materials are also getting changes.

The C4 Picasso comes equipped with Citroen’s e-HDi technology which incorporates emissions busting features such as Stop/Start technology and a regenerative alternator.

The Citroen C4 Picasso facelift will be able to cover 100 Km on just 4.4 liters of fuel (5.0 liters/100 Km for the Grand C4 Picasso facelift) while CO2 emissions have dropped at 125 grams per Km (130 g/Km for the Grand C4 Picasso).

Both the models will go on sale at the end of the year.

The Citroen DS High Rider was present at the Geneva Auto Show last month but what was on the inside of the car wasn’t its final interior layout. It is now that the moniker has revealed the very fist mages of the interior which the commuter will finally arrive with. Even now, High Rider’s rear portion remains a mystery while on the inside it gets a bi-color dark brown and gold leather scheme along with the white cross stitching that covers the seat and the dash. The entire interior trim has been finished in Chrome while the door inserts get the Midas touch. The concept is just a preview of the upcoming Citroën DS4 which will likely be available by the beginning of 2011.

Citroen is ready to reveal its upmarket models the DS4 and the DS5 this year and the news is that Citroen DS4 will eventually be unveiled as a concept at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show. Citroen has revealed teaser images of the C4 based model with headlights inspired by the C-Sportlounge Concept. The teaser image chooses a black honeycomb backdrop wherein the chrome detailing is pretty evident. The bumper and the grille have been combined to impart a typical DS lineup characteristic to the DS4 Concept. Although Citroen has not confirmed anything, speculation is ripe that the production version of this car will follow the release schedule of the DS3 with a Paris debut followed by an instant market launch.

The front grille, the sharp windshield and the roofline are what make the latest C3 and this prototype look pretty similar. It is being told that the Citroen DS4 will also borrow the shape from this entry level family car in the future. The 2011 Citroen C4 is expected to hit the market with new engine options and those options may probably include a hybrid variant. Whether it will be petrol electric or diesel electric is anyone’s guess and the experts also speculate a three-cylinder engine for the C4. [via WCF]

The new Citroen C-Zero EV only takes 6 hours to fully charge at 220V and only 30 minutes on a 400V plug if you can settle with only 80-percent. Fitted with ABS, electric windows, air conditioning, ESP and six airbags, the new C-Zero is expected to hit the road by the end of 2010. [via WCF]

Don’t expect a blue light and a middle aged detective to step out of this animal. Citroen is about to rock its roots. The new DS3 with built in Bluetooth and GPS is fit for the now generation. Packed into a sleek package, the DS3 looks like a German/Italian super model. The DS3 exudes French elegance, sophistication and performance artfully blended in a world class auto. Tailored upholstery and state of the art dash put the driver in a cockpit, ready to fly. And fly you will with your choice of gasoline or diesel fuel generating 91 to 152 horse power.

The Revolte Concept from Citroen, a throwback to the 2CV, has been a matter of great confusion since no one is thoroughly sure whether it will ever make it to the production floor. The images of the concept have however broken cover and it looks like a premium sporting hatch which will borrow some traits from the Citroen DS3. At the front the small beast gets the updated Citroen grille, small headlights and a honeycomb lower face. The rear doors on the sporting hatch  open rearward which maintain the C-shape form of the car at all times. We will have to wait until the Frankfurt Motor Show kicks off next week, before we know more. [via WCF]

We are not sure whether this gem of a car will actually be taken of the veil at the Frankfurt Motor Show but if Citroen is planning to surprise everyone, it will be worth being at the Citroen corner. Although the Citroen DS3 Convertible (better known as the DS3c) hasn’t been confirmed by the French company, car chopper
Theophilus Chin has come up with an amazing rendering of what the roof-less DS3 would look like. And we’re completely drooling over the images in here …

The speculation is that the Citroen DS3 will arrive in two diesel and three petrol variants. While the diesel ones will produce 90bhp and 110bhp the petrol units will churn 95bhp, 120 bhp and 150bhp.