Citroen C3 Review 2025

When the decision was made not to replace the Ford Fiesta, it was reasonable to assume that car buyers’ appetite for small hatchbacks had waned to such a degree that the genre would become a thing of the past, with chunkier compact SUVs taking their place. Not a bit of it — small cars have always been in high demand across Europe, although as you will discover in our full Citroen C3 review, this one has more than a little faux off-roader to it.

Given the gradual switchover to fully electric cars, its easy to forget that car manufacturers are still launching new models propelled by combustion engines, albeit likely the last generation of their kind. That’s why alongside the battery-powered Citroen e-C3, this identical-looking, petrol-sipping C3 is also sold.

Even more so than the outgoing Citroen C3, this latest model is a compact five-door hatchback which features a number of styling tropes that lend it an SUV vibe. Chief among these are the fake skid plates on its bumpers, the chunky band of unpainted plastic that circumnavigates the lower reaches of the bodywork, looping over the wheelarches and the substantial roof rails.

It also looks like it’s sat too high for a conventional small hatch, just as an SUV might, but that’s more to the advantage of how cossetting the Citroen C3’s ride quality is thanks to its Advanced Comfort Suspension — otherwise to drive it’s excitement-free, which is absolutely fine for a car of this nature. Should you wish to have a compact crossover with similar styling, you can do so with the Citroen C3 Aircross and its electric e-C3 Aircross twin, both of which use the same underpinnings.

Courtesy of Citroen being part of the enormous Stellantis combine, those same foundations and drive system choices can also be found beneath the Fiat Grande Panda. Its similarly perpendicular to the C3 proportion-wise although each has unique bodywork and dashboard designs.

With prices for the Citroen C3 starting at below £19,000, it’s targeting rivals at the value-centric end of the small hatchback market — although we reinforce that these days ‘value’ is not a euphemism for cheap and nasty. Among the better of the C3’s less expensive alternatives are the bargainous Dacia Sandero and the still-fresh second-generation MG 3. 

Aside from electric-specific fixtures, the interior of the Citroen C3 and e-C3 are identical in terms of style and space, with more than ample room for four six-foot-tall adults, and potentially a fifth for a short journey. Boot space is reasonable for a small car at 310 litres with the rear seats in place.

Clean and fuss-free in style, the C3’s dashboard is dominated by a protruding 10.25-inch touchscreen for the multimedia system, with various physical buttons and controls, including for the air-con, below and on the curiously small steering wheel. Driver’s instrumentation is nestled in a sliver-like screen slotted close to the base of the windscreen — it’s small yet clear enough to see day and night.

Fabric on the dashboard, two-tone upholstery plus whimsical labels on the interior door handles suggesting passengers should ‘have fun’ and ‘be happy’ help liven up what’s otherwise a functional cabin that’s shy on wow factor alongside its Fiat-badged cousin.

Two power choices are available both using the same 101PS 1.2-litre petrol engine — the Turbo 100 uses it alone, mated to a six-speed manual gearbox, while the Hybrid 110 is a mild hybrid with a dual-clutch automatic transmission, also with six ratios.

As with the e-C3, the petrol-fuelled Citroen C3 is available in two levels of specification — Plus and Max — although the non-hybrid-assisted engine is only available with the former. Standard equipment levels are generous, with the Plus featuring LED headlights, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay plus cruise control. Max models additionally feature climate control, heated front seats and a wireless smartphone charging pad.

Time was when forebears of small cars such as the Citroen C3 handled perfectly fine at urban speeds, but out on undulating B-roads they bounced around like a powerball in a school playground, while at motorway speeds their strained engines generated a more unpleasant din than an episode of Loose Women. This car is not like that.

Citroen has sensibly eschewed any notion of making the C3 sporty. That’s not what its for, so instead its focused on its Advanced Comfort mantra, which means super-comfy seat with different densities of foam within and trick dampers for the suspension. It sounds a tad convoluted yet the overall effect is impressive.

While the C3 feels planted and secure, its occupants are nevertheless more isolated from the road’s imperfections in a manner that outperforms many larger cars with longer wheelbases. Good job, done well.
Interestingly, this impressive degree of soft compliance isn’t at the expense of comedic lolling around and exaggerated angles of body lean when the C3’s taken through a series of faster bends sweeping this way and that. It remains composed, tracing corner trajectories as you’d wish, albeit with little communication about grip levels through its tiny steering wheel.

Inevitably, there’s a degree of cost-cutting involved when making any car, let alone a relatively inexpensive one. From a driving perspective that’s noticeable through the unwanted sounds transferred into the passenger area, which are at odds with its otherwise serenely comfy nature. Noise generated by the tyres plus wind rushing around its windscreen pillars and the roof rails’ leading edges disrupt the harmony, but the addition of an engine note don’t make them seem as obvious as they are in the electric Citroen e-C3.

There are two drive systems available for the Citroen C3, both of which feature the same turbocharged, three-cylinder 1.2-litre petrol engine driving the front wheels. 

In the C3 Turbo 100, the engine works alone, with its performance accessed via a six-speed manual transmission. Peak power is rated at 101PS — Citroen’s 100hp is a marketing-influenced rounded-down figure — while maximum torque is 205Nm. In performance terms, they equate to a 99mph top speed and a modest 10.6-second 0-62mph time.

Fitted with a six-speed dual-clutch automatic is the alternative C3 Hybrid 110. Citroen, as with other Stellantis brands, uses the H-word here in relation to a mild hybrid-assistance system, rather than a more conventional self-charging hybrid with a larger battery and the ability to drive a handful of miles on electric power alone.

Total power increases to 110PS although maximum torque and the top speed remain unchanged. There’s a notable improvement on the 0-62mph front with the benchmark time falling to 9.8 seconds.

Being small and light, the Hybrid 110 feels pleasantly zesty in the way it delivers its performance — it’s hardly hot hatch territory, yet it feels more than capable of holding its own both getting up to motorways speeds and allowing for swift, safe overtaking manoeuvres on single-carriageways.

The slick-shifting automatic allows you to access the extra torque available from lower gear ratios rapidly, the three-cylinder engine pulling strongly, if a little noisily as it goes about its business.

For the most part the C3’s mild hybrid system blends in and out seamlessly, although on occasion when lifting off the accelerator to allow engine braking to slow the car down, the regenerative energy recovery aspect of the process is audible as the motor harvests power for the battery. There’s no jolting in the system as it does so and it’s less noisy than the engine is, it’s just something you don’t expect to hear at first.

The Citroen C3 hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP so far, so it will be interesting to see how this value-centric small hatchback fares when it is.

All C3s come with an impressive amount of safety kit as standard, especially so considering its low price, including LED headlights and automatic main beam, six airbags, hill-start assist, cruise control, Active Safety Brake for emergencies, Active Lane Departure Warning System and a Driver Attention Alert. Max models additionally feature a reversing camera.

You can tow with a Citroen C3 although its maximum capacity will ensure that you’re not hauling anything substantial.

So far only the maximum capacity for the Turbo 100 has been confirmed, with a maximum for a braked trailer of 600kg. As and when the Hybrid 110’s towing figures are published, they’ll be included here. 

Whether sat in the front or rear of the Citroen C3, four above average height adults should find there’s plenty of space for their limbs, with enough margin above their heads for elevated hairstyles and Fedoras.

As part of Citroen’s Advanced Comfort system, the multi-density seat foam is especially comfy, feeling as though you’re sat on some kind of mattress topper, minimising aches associated with long spells in a car. The pair up front have a good range of adjustment while the rear bench angle is fine, even though the cushion’s ill-pitched to provide optimal under-thigh support for taller passengers.

The middle rear seat in any car is rarely the one anyone would choose to use, especially in a smaller, narrower car, yet here it doesn’t feel too slender compared with the outer positions and the floor’s reasonably flat for plenty of foot room. That said, if two bulky child seats are installed in the back, you’re unlikely to fit a passenger between them.

Fellow Stellantis brand Peugeot has long-advocated a driving arrangement called i-Cockpit. In essence it consists of a small-diameter steering wheel set lower than usual, with the instruments viewed over the top of it rather than through it. Something similar has been installed in the C3, yet it feels more natural than it has in any Peugeot to date. The Citroen’s wheel isn’t circular, although it’s pleasant to hold with a particularly thick rim.

With the rear seats in place the Citroen C3’s boot volume is 310 litres, extending to 1188 litres when the 60/40-split backrest is folded over. It doesn’t lie horizontally, plus there’s a chunky step up from the height of the boot floor, something to bear in mind when hauling in heavy loads.

Despite being 73mm shorter overall than the Dacia Sandero, the C3’s not hugely disadvantaged when it comes to boot space. Seats-up the Sandero’s capacity is 18 litres more, but 80 litres fewer when folded. Conversely the MG 3 is 98mm lengthier than the Citroen, yet less commodious overall — 293 litres seats up, 983 litres down.

In-cabin storage solutions are useful but not exceptional. A pair of cupholders are easily accessed towards the base of the dashboard, together with a smartphone-sized space that’s fitted with a wireless charging pad on Max versions. Each door can hold a litre-sized water bottle, plus the textile-clad horizontal plane of the dashboard can be used as an open shelf.

Given its low price, you won’t expect the Citroen C3 to represent the last word in automotive quality — what you will find yourself asking is ‘how have they made it feel this good for such a low price’. It surpasses expectations, in other words, and that’s more than good.

Fabric on the dashboard is a welcome touch to reduce the plasticky nature which would otherwise prevail, although we’d also like to see the fingerprint-collecting glossy black finishes ditched. Why car makers think such elements look classy remains a mystery.

You will find harder, less pleasant-feeling plastics in the lower reaches of the C3’s interior, but we encountered no sharp or unfinished edges there. More importantly, everything felt and sounded well-assembled with no early signs of ill-fitting trim with associated squeaks and rattles.

Protruding from the centre of the Citroen C3’s dashboard is a 10.25-inch multimedia touchscreen. There are some useful touch-sensitive shortcuts on either side of the display, although they don’t include any for the air-con system. Why? Because it has specific physical controls for its operation lower down on the dashboard — hurrah!

Resolution is acceptable but is far from pin-sharp, with the responsiveness to finger dabbing being similar — fine most of the time, with an occasional second attempt required. Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard although our test of the latter saw the rendered images frequently breaking up — plugging the phone into the cable solved it, but it also rather undermines the wireless nature of it.

Key driving information is viewed through a slot in the dashboard just below the windscreen. Graphics are small but sufficiently clear and are kept to a minimum. It’s a neat, simply solution that looks elegantly sophisticated despite its low cost. Bravo.

Yes, you can buy small hatchbacks that cost less than the Citroen C3 yet once its levels of standard kit and finish are factored in, it feels like sound, enticing value. If Citroen followed its usual trim level hierarchy model, there’s space for an entry-level You grade to flesh-out the line-up.

With its manual transmission, the Citroen C3 Turbo 100 is only available in Plus specification for £18,805. If you fancy the automatic option of the C3 Hybrid 110 in the same trim you’ll be looking at £20,615. Range-topping Max trim is only available in conjunction with the Hybrid 110 engine, costing £22,315.

How do those numbers stack up against the key opposition?

Dacia’s Sandero can be had for as little as £14,715, although that’s with a very basic level of equipment, while the more generous MG 3 weighs in at £17,245.

More intriguing is the Fiat Grande Panda which uses the same underpinnings and engines as the C3. So far, only the Hybrid 110 version is on sale, starting at £18,035 for the entry-level Pop specification. Cheaper than the Citroen, but the Fiat in mid-range Icon guise is closer to the C3’s Plus trim in kit terms and costs £19,035.

As a small hatchback the Citroen C3 is going to prove largely inexpensive to run, with the Hybrid 110 positing a WLTP Combined cycle claim of 56.5mpg. That compares with the Turbo 100’s 52.0mpg best figure. In our real-world experiences with the Hybrid version, a figure of 48.0-50.0mpg seemed achievable without being too gentle with the accelerator pedal.

Neither is going to be particularly attractive to company car drivers, where the e-C3’s 3% Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax rating makes it the default choice.

As the C3’s nowhere near the £40,000 threshold to induce a charge for the Expensive Car Supplement, there’s no need to be concerned about that.

Citroen’s usual three-year/unlimited mileage warranty provides peace of mind, for the first owner, at least.

There are two levels of specification available for the Citroen C3 range — Plus and Max. Note that the less powerful Turbo 100 engine choice is only available in Plus specification.

Standard equipment for the Citroen C3 Plus includes:

• 17-inch Atacamite diamond-cut bi-tone alloy wheels
• Advanced Comfort Suspension with Progressive Hydraulic Cushions
• Black wheelarch extensions
• Roof rails
• Two-tone roof
• Grey front and rear bumper skidplates
• Rear parking sensors
• Automatic LED daytime-running lights and headlights with automatic main beam
• Automatic wipers
• Electric front and rear windows
• Electrically operated, heated and folding door mirrors
• Urban Grey cloth upholstery
• Advanced Comfort front and rear seats
• Faux leather-wrapped steering wheel
• 10.25-inch multimedia touchscreen display
• Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity
• Six-speaker audio system
• Manual air conditioning
• Cruise control
• Hill Start Assist

Upgrading to the Citroen C3 Max adds:

• Dark-tined rear side and tailgate privacy glass
• Front foglights
• LED rear lights
• Reversing camera
• Electrically heated windscreen
• Metropolitan Grey cloth and faux leather upholstery
• Heated front seats
• Heated steering wheel
• Integrated 3D navigation
• Wireless smartphone charging pad
• Single-zone climate control
• Auto-dimming interior rear-view mirror