YORK, England — By the time our current century got started, most American car shoppers had become fully committed to pickups and SUVs as their preferred rides. Cross the Atlantic at that time, however, and you’d find that the compact MPV was one of the most popular choices for Western European drivers seeking plenty of passenger and cargo space in a small package. The Citroën Xsara Picasso was one of the best-selling compact MPVs of its era
The Cali fornia high desert in 2006, where cops in 15-year-old box Caprices
hide behind Picasso billboards in order to bust speeding Citroëns.
The U.K.-market 2006 Xsara Picasso was available in Desire, VTX and Exclusive trim levels. This one is the base Desire model. These badges now live on my garage wall.
For a car that weighed well under 3,000 pounds, the Xsara Picasso offered an amazing amount of interior space. There’s room for five inside, with airliner-style folding tables for the rear-seat passengers; those rear seats are removable to make room for bulky cargo.
The Xsara Picasso was one of the first vehicles designed by Donato Coco, who went on to work at Ferrari and Lotus. In addition to his work designing many Citroën models, Coco was behind the styling of the Ferrari 458 Italia.
This one is a petrol-engined model with five-speed manual transmission, featuring 110 horses beneath its bonnet. Diesels and automatics were available as well.
U-Pull-It York’s inventory listing for this car shows that it had 114,279 miles on the odometer when it was retired with front-end damage. A check of its MOT history
indicates that it passed its final inspection in October 2022 and that its registration was allowed to expire a year later.
Citroën got its money’s worth out of that Picasso branding deal.
Those rebellious assembly-line robots have had their minds freed by the spirit of a long-dead Spaniard.
The faces of ordinary French children become terrifying Cubist sculptures when they ride in an Xsara Picasso.
Richard Hammond reviewed the first-year Xsara Picasso in 2000.
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