YORK, England — By the point our current century got began, most American automotive shoppers had grow to be fully committed to pickups and SUVs as their preferred rides. Cross the Atlantic at the moment, nonetheless, and also you’d find that the compact MPV was some of the popular decisions for Western European drivers searching for loads of passenger and cargo space in a small package. The Citroën Xsara Picasso was one in every of the best-selling compact MPVs of its era, and I’ve found this ’06 in a self-service scrapyard (as they call them here) in York, England.
It has been 51 years since recent Citroëns were sold in america, and so I’ve only managed to document a handful of them during my junkyard travels. Citroën began constructing cars in 1918, merged with Peugeot in 1974 and have become a part of the mighty Stellantis Empire in 2021.
How did it occur that Citroën is allowed to position Pablo Picasso‘s famous signature on its cars? In 1989, Pablo’s son sold the rights to Citroën for $20 million.
The brochures for this automotive bear down very hard on the Pablo Picasso connection.
Although the Xsara Picasso never got here near being sold in america, here’s one within the brochure negotiating the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange in Los Angeles (where the bus-jump scene in 1994’s “Speed” took place).
The California high desert in 2006, where cops in 15-year-old box Caprices hide behind Picasso billboards with the intention to bust speeding Citroëns.
The U.K.-market 2006 Xsara Picasso was available in Desire, VTX and Exclusive trim levels. This one is the bottom Desire model. These badges now continue to exist my garage wall.
For a automotive that weighed well under 3,000 kilos, the Xsara Picasso offered a tremendous amount of interior space. There’s room for five inside, with airliner-style folding tables for the rear-seat passengers; those rear seats are removable to make room for bulky cargo.
Such a vehicle never caught on in North America, despite the most effective efforts of Japanese manufacturers.
The Xsara Picasso was succeeded by the C4 Picasso, which has since evolved into the form of crossover SUV that will look right at home on American roads. It took awhile, however the SUV craze finally has conquered Europe.
The Xsara Picasso was one in every of the primary vehicles designed by Donato Coco, who went on to work at Ferrari and Lotus. Along with his work designing many Citroën models, Coco was behind the styling of the Ferrari 458 Italia.
This one is a petrol-engined model with five-speed manual transmission, featuring 110 horses beneath its bonnet. Diesels and automatics were available as well.
U-Pull-It York’s inventory listing for this automotive shows that it had 114,279 miles on the odometer when it was retired with front-end damage. A check of its MOT history indicates that it passed its final inspection in October 2022 and that its registration was allowed to run out a yr later.
Citroën got its money’s price out of that Picasso branding deal.
Those rebellious assembly-line robots have had their minds freed by the spirit of a long-dead Spaniard.
The faces of abnormal French children grow to be terrifying Cubist sculptures once they ride in an Xsara Picasso.
Richard Hammond reviewed the first-year Xsara Picasso in 2000.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
