When compared to immediate rivals, 2024 Citroen C3 is the only one to get a performance-oriented 110 PS Turbo Petrol engine
The French car manufacturer, Citroen, has stepped into a new phase of its strategies for its India operations. The company just launched Basalt Coupe SUV with a very aggressive price tag, starting from Rs 7.99 lakh (Ex-sh). Now, there are major revisions with C3 Hatchback in August 2024. Let’s take a look.
2024 Citroen C3 Launched
After selling the C5 Aircross import, C3 Hatchback was the one that launched Citroen as a mainstream car manufacturer in India. C3 Hatchback brought price competitiveness into its segment. But the company achieved those pricing with severe cut downs in features and overall creature comforts.
With C3 Hatchback, Citroen later introduced Shine variant, with a few much-needed feature updates. However, that wasn’t exactly the fix Citroen was hoping to boost sales. Fast forwarding to August 2024, Citroen has just updated its C3 Hatchback with new features and creature comforts, which seem to be a step in the right direction.
We wished Citroen didn’t hike the prices with the new updates because C3 Hatchback should have had these features from day one. Prices for 2024 Citroen C3 start from Rs 6.16 lakh (Ex-sh) for base Live PureTech 82 MT variant and goes till Rs 9.42 lakh (Ex-sh) for top-spec Shine Turbo DT + Vibe.
Interestingly, Citroen is yet to reveal prices for C3 Shine PureTech 110 AT variant with 6-speed ‘Automatique’ torque converter gearbox. It has to be noted that Citroen has removed Turbo Petrol option from Feel trim. Now, only the top-spec Shine trim gets Turbo Petrol MT and Turbo Petrol AT combinations.
The new additions with 2024 Citroen C3 include LED projector headlights, 6 airbags, leather-wrapped steering wheel, 6 airbags (only offered with Feel and Shine trims), an automatic climate control AC system, a 7-inch digital instrument cluster (finally a Tacho on C3) and electronically foldable ORVMs among other features.
What else does it get?
Citroen has also fixed some ergonomic flaws that persisted with C3 since launch. Primary of it is the positioning of power window controls. Other than these there is still a major features deficit with C3 Hatchback and the correlating price is not low when compared to feature-rich offerings like Tata Punch and Hyundai Exter.
Few crucial safety features are not standard across the range. Then there is the 0 Star Global NCAP crash safety rating scored by eC3, which is positioned on the same CMP skateboard as C3. Powertrains continue to be the same. PureTech 82 comes mated to a sole 5-speed MT gearbox and makes 82 PS and 115 Nm. PureTech 110 comes with 6-speed MT (190 Nm) and 6-speed AT (205 Nm) gearbox options and packs a healthy 110 PS of peak power.
