Remember those wonderful old Citroens from the 60s, shaped like boats, low-slung, with the bodywork that almost covered the rear wheels? Those ones that it was technically illegal to drive without smoking Gauloises and wearing a pair of effortlessly tasteful sunglasses at the same time? Well, the new Citroen Xsara has absolutely nothing in common with them, except the name Citroen.
The Xsara may in fact be the most characterless car on the market right now, apart from the Ford Fiesta - which actually forces you to admire it, the way you have to admire anyone who pursues a project right to its very end. In its determination to offer as little as possible in the way of troublesome excitement, the Xsara goes to virtually heroic degrees of self-restraint. All you can do, in the end, is take off the shades, put out the cigarette and bow before it in unmitigated approval - along with 1m other Citroen Xsara drivers already out there on the roads.
Here's how exciting things get in the crazy world of the new Citroen Xsara: if you have a crash, the hazard lights come on automatically. Great news. You might be upside down in a field, but at least your indicators will be winking.
I should point out that, tempted though I was to see this innovative facility in action - and tempted though I was, for a variety of reasons, to put the car in a field - I contrived not to have a crash in my Citroen Xsara. I am therefore obliged to take Citroen's word on the blinker gimmick. But I believe it.
Other advances made by this new take on the old Citroen Xsara include three new ridges along the bonnet, clear glass in the headlamps and a bigger Citroen badge on the boot - which may now be opened using the remote control, or, as we must learn to call it, the "plip".
Plus the radio aerial has been repositioned. It's now at the back. And the buttons that operate the electric windows have been moved. But I'm not going to tell you where they are, because I don't want to spoil the suspense.
My Xsara came painted in a shade that Citroen refer to as Misty Lilac, or, as I preferred to think of it, Psychedelic Undercoat. Its message of a curtailed good time was at one with most of what lay within the car. The interior feels solid, reliable, uncomplaining, concerned not to startle you in any way. Even the screen for the navigation system (a daringly party-style extra in the context of the Xsara) is a modest strip, sitting quietly in the dashboard, rather than the usual loud screen, screaming for attention.
I drove one of the diesel models. There's a lot to be said for diesel engines, particularly in relation to fuel consumption, but also in relation to the creation of cars that are boring to drive. Traditionally with diesel, acceleration is sluggish. You put your foot down, and the car gets the idea a few minutes later, by which time you probably need to brake anyway.
Theoretically, in the Xsara, these are minutes you could usefully fill by catching up with some work on the Citroen Auto PC system - an on-board computer set-up, offering a voice-activated telephone service and email. Citroen's literature happily envisages the hyper-busy executive dictating orders to head office and confirmations to clients, "using time that could otherwise be wasted sitting in traffic".
Except you can't yet, because the Auto PC system is only fitted to the continental models of the Xsara and Citroen says it is "currently assessing the likely demand for such a system before deciding on availability in the UK". I wonder what's keeping it. Why would British drivers not go for computers in Citroens as avidly as, say, French drivers? My own research at the wheel - which caused me to log sensations of peculiar disengagement in a variety of on-the-road scenarios - suggested fairly firmly that the need for distraction in a Citroen Xsara was a pan-European phenomenon.
But it does seem generally that the exciting add-ons for the Xsara are only coming later to Britain, subject to further local testing. For instance, my time with the Xsara would have been perked up enormously, I feel sure, by the proposed incorporation of a reversing sensor - one of those devices which makes the car bleep at you in a panic when you start backing into the personal space of large objects. But again, for some reason, that's not coming along until next year.
To be fair to the Xsara's diesel engine, it's a high-pressure direct-injection model - which means that that traditional diesel sluggishness is, in actual fact, chivvied out of existence. No time to go shopping on the net between gear changes after all.
But only BMW, it seems to me, has genuinely got to grips with the most off-putting aspect of diesel engines, which is that loose, chesty cough they suffer from when ticking over. It's fine for idling post vans, but not necessarily the kind of soundtrack you want from a saloon, or even an enlarged hatchback like the Xsara.
That said, there's something about that unperturbable rumble which suits the car right up to its aerial. It's a steady and sturdy vehicle, but it's never going to flip your plip.
The lowdown
Citroen Xsara 2.0 HDi
Price: £12,995
Maximum speed: 112 mph
Acceleration: 0-62 in 11.6 seconds
Consumption: 52.3 mpg
At the wheel: Delia Smith
On the stereo: Sade
En route for: The Norfolk Broads
