SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


Citroën’s 2012 One-litre C1 Seduction is small enough to slip under most people’s radar but we found it.

Big on little

Fact of Life number 57: small, budget city cars all hail from the East, except those from Peugeot and Citroën. Even they use Toyota’s tiny three-cylinder pepper grinder of an engine. All you need to do is pop the flap - you couldn’t possibly call it a bonnet – to see that manufacturer’s name on the exhaust manifold heat shield.

Another “flap” is the light glass hatch providing access to the boot, more of a slipper really, that still manages to be bigger than those of some competitors. The more expensive Seduction version we drove has folding seat backs to expand its 128 dm3 binette to 784 dm3.

Also exclusive to this model are side airbags to supplement the two already provided, ISOFix anchorages, remote central locking, daytime running lights, some trim paint and chrome, air conditioning, electrically powered front windows (those in back hinge open), a rev counter, a basic radio and CD player and the option of fitting alloy wheels. All this comes in at a premium of just R23 100. Guess which model they would like you to buy?

Standard kit on both versions includes ABS brakes with EBD and EBA, two airbags, front belt pre-tensioners with load limiters, a transponder immobiliser, high-level third brake light, variable ratio power steering, a fully sized spare wheel and a wiper on the back window.

But it does cuteness magnificently. Its boxy uprightness and miniscule length of 3,44 metres could only handle three doors, right? Wrong; there are five and there is enough space for medium-sized people in the back seat. We larger types could fit in for short journeys though. Further cuteness is in the vent controls that rotate up and down, rather than turning from side to side. Being practical like a French housewife, windscreen vent and maximum warmth are at the top, while cooler air and other vents are placed lower down. These controls look rather plasticky, but no cheaper than those on some Japanese 4x4s for example.

Other practical items include lots of storage slots and bins - no lid on the principal cubby unfortunately – and main instruments that move up and down as you adjust the steering wheel. The seats are highback items with built-in head restraints and the outside mirrors adjust manually. You sit up high in the C1, with a commanding view, but taller drivers still have plenty of headroom.

If you accept the optional high-end music centre at R3200, you will also get USB, auxiliary and Bluetooth. Its controls are Gallicly-different, but they all make perfect sense once you figure them out. Alloy wheels as shown in the accompanying picture add R2500, which is pretty inexpensive these days.

The 998cc engine performs well for one so small, it growls softly like a cornered kitten and the five-speed manual gearbox shifts smoothly. You can see out nicely and it turns on a button; a perfect city car. Our only whine concerns tyres fitted to the test unit. They were ContiPremium Contact2, otherwise brilliant covers with excellent water dispersing ability, but they follow grooves in concrete roads much too faithfully for comfort. If that could be a regular feature in your life, see whether you can get another brand or change when the originals wear out. Goodyear, Kumho and Michelin dealers generally have the same size available.

The numbers
Basic price: R123 000
Engine: 998cc, three-cylinder, 12-valve with VVT-i
Power: 50 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 93 Nm at 3600 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 13,5 seconds
Maximum speed: 160 km/h
Fuel index: 5,2 l/100 km
Tank: 35 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Warranty extension, service and maintenance plans are optional


Please note that this shot is of the Attraction model that doesn't have a rev. counter

Optional alloy wheels shown - here and top

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.