This article titled “On the road: Citroën C4 Cactus – car review” was written by Laura Barton, for The Guardian on Saturday 18th October 2014 05.00 UTC‘I was just staring at this fence, thinking, ‘You mustn’t crash into the fence, Katy.’ Then I basically accelerated.” Katy Brand is sitting in the passenger seat of our Citroën C4 Cactus, recalling the intensive moped course she had to take for a recent role.
“I’d never been on a moped before,” she says. “I felt vulnerable, and dangerous – to myself and to anyone near me. And I had what the instructor called ‘target fixation’. Which I think is just a nice way of saying, you’re really crap at riding a moped.”
Today we are rolling along the country lanes of Hampshire, close to Brand’s home. She drives a Citroën, too – a C3 that, unlike the Cactus, “has two drinks holders that actually fit drinks” (this one’s don’t).
Nor does her Citroën suffer from the peculiar armrest next to the driver’s seat, which, when folded down, makes it virtually impossible for anyone with arms to change gear.
Still, the Cactus is a pleasant drive. It’s a little perplexed by the windy roads, and calls for plenty of gear changes, but deals well with bumps, leaf mulch and the occasional need to brake fiercely when a pheasant runs into the road.
“I like very loud hip-hop to drive to,” Brand tells me, incongruously, as we drive past a row of thatched cottages. “The only problem with driving to hip-hop is that you do end up driving a lot faster.” I can picture her, I say, zooming through her idyllic village, blaring out Jay Z. “Yes,” she nods. “Speeding past the duck pond, waving to the vicar.”
I feel similarly discordant driving the Cactus in the countryside, largely because its design – a dimpled strip down each side – makes it look faintly like a giant sports shoe. It even gets puzzled looks in the city, when I drive home later on.
It has other oddities: the layout, for instance, with its strangely plummeting boot; the fact that both rear seats come down in one plank, limiting the possibilities of carrying people and cargo. Then there is the snugness of the cabin, which means that every time I change gear, I half grope Brand’s thigh. She’s polite about it, though.
It has a touch-screen display that, while sleek, proves mildly infuriating – not least because it includes the temperature control, so you have the faff of scrolling through menus before you can cool the car. In the end, we just roll down the windows.
Brand doesn’t drive the distances she used to; when she was on the comedy circuit, she would be heading up and down the motorway, back and forth from gigs, quite regularly. “I used to like driving late at night and just having that time on my own,” she recalls. “I do like driving in silence. It’s just the nicest way to clear your head: driving on an empty motorway at 1am with absolute silence. It almost gets quite meditative.”
Marriage, too, has changed her approach to driving. “I’m worried that since I got married I’m becoming one of those women who doesn’t drive on motorways any more,” she admits. “Which I’m horrified by.” If she ever wants to reclaim her daredevil motoring spirit, she could get a moped. She shakes her head: “Never again.”
Citroen C4 Cactus
Price £17,190
Top speed 117mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 9.3 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 60.1mpg
CO2 emissions 107g/km
Eco rating 7/10
Cool rating 6/10
On the stereo 99 Problems by Jay-Z
• Katy Brand’s film Walking On Sunshine is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD, courtesy of Entertainment One.
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