Thanks to endless regulations surrounding crash safety and emissions, the modern car is increasingly homogenous. Pedestrian safety regulations mean that a high hood and a flat front end are a must, while environmental requirements dictate a “reverse-teardrop” shape and a big, turbocharged engine to deal with the weight of the other passive safety features, not to mention all of the creature comforts and electronic active safety gadgets that are considered mandatory by many consumers.
Unless you’re Citroen. Then you create the Cactus.
What more would you expect from the company that brought you the DS, the SM, the XM and of course, the 2CV? It looks like a supervillain-designed lunar rover from the outside and a cross between Enterprise spaceship and the iconic 2CV from the inside.
It would almost be sinister looking if not for the Airbump panels, which gave the car its name. They’re basically the vehicular equivalent of bubble wrap. The soft plastic with air underneath protects the bodywork from parking-lot dings, which is brilliant. They are a bit like the spikes on a Cactus, designed to protect the rest of the exterior in the same way that the prickly stuff protects the fruit of the plant from being eaten by predators.
And the interior isn’t too shabby, either. Citroën dispensed with traditional instrument panel and controls on the dashboard and center panel. They have been replaced by a display in front of the driver and touchscreen in the middle. The main display replaces the instrument panel with digital graphics straight out of a 1980s sci-fi flick. It probably looks exactly like something 1980s designers would use, if they could. It looks kind of like 1988 Oldsmobile without the technology constraints.
The touchscreen in the middle is far more conventional affair. It’s basically the same one you can also find in a Peugeot 308 and many other PSA models. It’s quite good, with nice graphics and fairly quick reactions, but I don’t really like the fact that it replaces almost everything else that normal car places on the central panel. Like HVAC controls or basic radio controls. And there is no way to split the screen for several functions. If you’re in radio menu and suddenly want to change the temperature or direction of the ventilation, you have to go to the HVAC main screen, do the changes, return to the main Media screen, and go back through everything. Not exactly convenient, let me tell you.
