A CITROEN hatchback winning the 2023 Driver Power New Car survey, outright? Zut Alors! Such may be the response of many a reader who, like me, is old enough to have been brainwashed at childhood into believing the old clichés about French cars.
Namely, that they’re flimsy motorised sheds with a frivolous disregard for the need to be anything more than loosely fastened together as they wheeze and wallow over the local farmer’s field on journeys typically involving a basket of eggs.
A largely undeserved reputation, of course, but it amused us, which is presumably how it gained traction in an era when we Brits were knocking out Allegros and Marinas that fell apart on contact with fresh air. Unlike British Leyland and its constituent brands, though, Citroen never went…