Citroen C4 Picasso

At a glance

Who is this car for?

Groups of five adults wanting to travel together in one vehicle with enough room for luggage and comfort for drives to Dubrovnik or Mostar.

• Group travel
• Family hire
• Long drives

On Montenegro roads

Behind the wheel

The C4 Picasso is an MPV in the original sense, a high-roofed, five-individual-seat people carrier designed to make every passenger comfortable over long distances rather than to look sporty at a standstill. The second-generation version in Kotor rental use carries either the 1.6 BlueHDi 120 hp diesel or the 1.2 PureTech 130 hp petrol; the diesel is the correct pick for any hire involving serious interior mileage. The panoramic windscreen, which runs up into the roofline, delivers a light and airy cabin that feels larger than the external dimensions suggest. Every one of the five seats folds or slides individually, a flexibility that nothing else on this roster approaches.

On Montenegro roads

For a Kotor-based family on a two-week hire the C4 Picasso turns the standard day-trip roster into a noticeably more comfortable event. The Lovćen serpentine, which in a lower-slung car brings out motion sickness in younger passengers, is absorbed by the longer-travel suspension and the higher-set seats that allow all occupants to see the horizon. The full Kotor–Cetinje–Virpazar–Skadar loop is a comfortable 220 km day rather than a tiring one; the 90-minute run to Dubrovnik sits three adults in the second row without a middle-seat argument. On the Smokovac motorway the diesel settles at 1,800 rpm at 120 km/h with the family on board.

Space and load

At 537 litres seats-up the C4 Picasso boot is in a different category from every other car listed here. Five adults with full checked luggage for a two-week holiday travel without removing a single bag to the cabin; add a pushchair, a beach cool-box, and a set of snorkelling gear and the boot lid still closes. Fold the third row (the individual rear seat, which is removable in some configurations) and 1,857 litres appears, enough for road bikes, SUP boards, or the full contents of a Montenegrin holiday villa's terrace. This is the car for family travel where luggage volume is the brief.

Best journeys for this car

The C4 Picasso's Kotor rental customer is the family of four or five, typically with younger children, on a stay of ten days or more. The brief is the standard one: coastal days at Jaz and Bečići, a push to Cetinje and the Lovćen viewpoint, a multi-day loop to Žabljak or across the border to Mostar, and the weekly supermarket run to Voli or Mercator. Multi-generational groups, grandparents travelling with adult children and grandchildren, rate the separate seats and the access ease of the high door aperture. It is also the correct pick when a pushchair is travelling, the combination of fold-flat floor and high load lip means the pushchair loads without folding.

Practical notes

Diesel economy at 4.8 L/100 km in mixed driving with a full family load is impressive for the vehicle size; the 55-litre tank delivers over 1,100 km between fills. At 4.34 m long the C4 Picasso is 3 cm shorter than a 308 estate but substantially taller: it fits Tabacina and the Benovo main lot bays but not the tighter overnight-permitted bays at the south bastion wall, where the height triggers the 2.0 m barrier. Multi-storey car parks in Budva and Herceg Novi with low clearance bars are the other caveat. The high body makes the car vulnerable to the Adriatic crosswind on the open section of the coastal road between Jaz and Bečići at speed.

The verdict

Pick the C4 Picasso when the family requires five genuinely comfortable individual seats, over 500 litres of boot space, and a diesel range that handles multi-day Balkans loops without a daily fuel stop. Skip it for two-adult stays where the boot and height are overkill and a Megane or Kadjar provides most of the family-load benefit in a more manageable package.

Inside the car

• BlueHDi diesel
• Automatic gearbox
• Panoramic windscreen
• Seats 5