Citroen Grand C4 SpaceTourer review: still one of the best seven-seat cars for large families

If I were a paranoid type, I think someone at Citroen was trying to wind me up.

A week after I arranged to take the Grand C4 Spacetourer on a holiday test drive back to its motherland, the French brand announced it was discontinuing the seven-seat people carrier.

Production of the slick-looking Spacetourer will stop at the end of July, with Citroen citing “changing customer habits” for the move - everyone’s buying SUVs instead of MPVs.

So you can’t walk into your local dealership and spec one for yourself any more. However there are plenty of delivery-mileage examples out there as well as a healthy second-hand market and, off the back of our week with it I can confirm it’s still almost unrivalled for larger families looking for the ultimate in practicality and versatility.

It’s perhaps a sign of waning interest in the segment that apart from some specification upgrades, the car hasn’t been substantially updated for several years. It still looks the same as when it was called the Grand C4 Picasso, has the same engines and remains as feature-packed as ever.

That lack of change brings positives and negatives. Stylistically, the Grand C4 always was and remains a step above its ungainly rivals like the Ford S-Max. Its proportions are well managed and thin split-level lights and a neat silver trim running round the top half of the car break up its boxy form. Its visual “lightness” and interior airness is enhanced by a windscreen that stretches far back into the roofline, where it almost connects to the huge panoramic sunroof.

Also on the bright side, you can properly disable the nannying lane assist, yet the car still features advanced functions such as adaptive cruise control and auto-dipping lights.

Less great is the presence of just one USB port and the rear parking camera’s 1990s video game image quality. There’s also an archaic infotainment system housed in a meagre seven-inch screen. Thankfully, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are present, meaning you don’t have to rely on the previous generation Citroen software, unless you want to adjust the air con.

There are other design “quirks” that really should have been engineered out by now - front cupholders too small for anything but a skinny bottle of Evian and rear door pockets barely broad enough for a paperback book - but they’re all outweighed by what the car gets right.

Absolutely central to that is the space and how you can use it.