Citroen Saxo VTR review
by David Finlay (4 January 2003)
The Citroen Saxo's popularity in this country can't be entirely unconnected with the fact that, thanks to all the special deals that have been made available over the years, there may be nobody in existence who has paid full price for a new one. But that isn't the full story. The Saxo is also sought-after to an almost unbelievable extent among the hot hatch brigade.
Even a diesel will do as long as it can be made to look cool with a grand or so's worth of bodykit. For preference, though, it should be one of the performance versions. Ideally the VTS, but if not that then maybe a VTR.
The VTS is the really quick one, with the 16-valve version of the 1.6-litre engine. The VTR has only eight valves and loses out by 20bhp, but it costs nearly £2000 less and is much cheaper to run.
It would be all too easy to dismiss the VTR as being the VTS for people who can't afford a VTS. Personally I'm not so sure. If you redline each car through all the gears you'll find that the VTS is much quicker on account of being a fifth as powerful again as its humbler relation. Which is fine for a track day. But nobody can drive like that every day in the real world (no, you can't, stop day-dreaming), and the VTR's more mid-range-friendly behaviour means it doesn't lose out much on public roads.
All the same, it's not quick enough to be particularly exciting in a straight line. It is, however, awfully good on corners. The Saxo is broadly based on the AX it replaced, and it feels like it. It's an old design, a world away from a lot of the other superminis on the market. But in VTR form it is beautifully set-up.
Magazine testers tend to speak in approving terms of lift-off oversteer, and the Saxo has a lot of this. If you realise in mid-corner that the front end is straying too far off line, a brief back-pedal on the throttle will send the tail flying round and sharpen up the car's overall attitude a treat - and all this without ever feeling that you're about to launch into a spin. Great stuff.
Of course, that assumes that you've been such a clodhopper as to create understeer in the first place, which is another thing magazine testers tend to do. But you don't actually have to drive the VTR like that. The chassis is so sharp that if you time everything correctly the car will whoosh round corners with no fuss whatever, feeling - as Mario Andretti said about the ground-effect Lotus 78 F1 car - that it's painted to the road.
Maybe this isn't so much fun for people who like cheap thrills and the occasional scare in their everyday driving, but I prefer this aspect of its behaviour to the fact that the car can usually be relied on to get you out of trouble.
The handling is really quite amazing for a car with a list price of under £10,000. I can't think of anything else that offers the same level of precision for similar money.
The reason it's so cheap is that equipment levels are very low. There isn't much to get excited about inside, the door mirrors have to be adjusted manually, and in its basic form the VTR doesn't even have ABS. Frankly I think it should, given how most owners will want to drive it, but ABS is only available as part of a £550 Safety Pack option which also includes EBD and front passenger and lateral airbags.
The test car did come with various extras, one of which was black paint. (Black paint an extra? What would Henry Ford say?) The others were quad headlamps, sexy rear lights and chrome pedal covers, fuel cap, handbrake lever and gearknob. Most of the things, in other words, that a Saxo owner might want to buy down at the local accessory shop. And even with that lot fitted you're still talking about a list price of not much over £10,500.
Add in the Safety Pack option, though, and you're now looking at very nearly the price of a VTS, which probably doesn't add up to much of a deal in the minds of potential buyers unless running costs are a major issue.
The main gripe about the Saxo is the desperately cramped footwell. It's so tight down there that I was forever catching the throttle when I meant to hit only the brake (which didn't feel like it was connected to anything much when I finally found it, though the brakes are actually pretty good), and there was nowhere to put my left foot when it wasn't employed in clutch-pumping duties. Both these factors did considerable damage to the driving experience.
On the other hand, with the black paint and in particular the quad headlamps, the test car looked real neat, and as long as I was careful what I pressed with which foot I had a great time buzzing around favourite roads. The VTR is a very long way from being the perfect hot hatch, but I can certainly see the general appeal.
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