Citroen Saxo VTS review
by David Finlay (10 January 2000)
Fashions in motoring, like fashions in everything else, are as fickle as get out. Go back ten years and imagine Subaru making one of the most sought-after popular saloons in the industry, or SEAT enjoying both rallying success and street cred in equal measure with one of the hottest hatches around.
Or consider Citroen. If you've been around for any length of time you will associate Citroen - either enthusiastically or disparagingly - with oddball cars like the 2CV, the Visa, the CX . . . in fact, with more or less every model the company produced before about 1990.
Today, to the regret of the marque's more off-centre fans, Citroen produces reasonably popular mainstream cars. That's not something that would have been easily predicted a few years ago. But if at that time you had gone round suggesting that there would ever be a Citroen like the Saxo VTS, the men with the butterfly nets would have taken you away before sundown.
With 1600cc, 16 valves, 120bhp, handling to match and sex appeal to spare, the VTS is the car young drivers hope they will get for their 18th birthday, and a few of the more fortunate ones do. Having got one they will very likely customise it - aftermarket tuning and styling parts are fitted to Saxos in the way they were once fitted to Minis. It is the car of the moment among today's cruisers.
Like the rest of the range, the VTS has had a facelift, demonstrating that the ones you can buy now are different from the ones you could buy before to the extent that . . . er, that they have had a facelift. None of the bodywork from the windscreen backwards has been changed, and any mechanical alterations are so small as to be not worth mentioning.
Which is fine, really, because the VTS has always been a fun piece of kit and it would have been a shame to spoil it (frankly, I think the facelift has spoiled it quite enough, but manufacturers these days seem scared to leave a good shape alone for more than a couple of years).
An hour's blasting round part of the MIRA test facility a few months ago showed that the VTS can be flung around at the limit without too much fuss, which was great fun but not particularly relevant to anything that might happen on the road. In the real world it doesn't feel too special for most of the time. The ride is a little jiggly, though not to excess, and for anyone over six feet tall the seating position can quickly become uncomfortable.
But it turns heads, which is an important factor among potential buyers. And if you do get the chance to send the revcounter needle round to 7000, it roars along in a thoroughly pleasing manner. It sounds right, it goes right, and if you find an appropriate and quiet enough piece of road it certainly handles right - there are very few hot hatches that can equal the VTS's poise through a challenging series of bends.
Slow down again and once more you are driving a fairly ordinary car. But at least you know its potential. And the people who gaze longingly as you trundle past them know it too.
Second opinion: When you let it rip, you find the difference the extra 30bhp of the VTS makes over the cheaper VTR. It's an amazing change in the market that, if you add the sales of these two cars together, the Saxo is the UK's best selling hot hatch. The handling balance of the VTS feels just right on winding and/or hilly roads, but it's a pest that there isn't enough room down by the pedals to move or park a large left foot comfortably. Ross Finlay.
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