Back in October, our beloved Fiat Punto 60SX went in for its MoT test which would turn out to be its last. The test outcome resulted in us selling it to a friend who broke it for spares. A sad end, maybe, but it’s keeping other Puntos on the road and the engine and gearbox assembly are being fitted to a Cinquecento Sporting for a bit of an upgrade. So we’d be down to one functioning car, one that would also be requiring a bloody MoT test soon.

So, a call to my mate located in the Toxic South of England to see what fine jalopies he had in stock was on the cards, and to be fair there was quite a selection. But the one that caught my eye as he bombarded my inbox with pictures (not LIKE THAT) was a metallic green base model Citroën Xsara. A largely forgotten medium hatchback from the 1990s with fairly bland styling (for a Citroen, anyway), so naturally it was right up my rue.

Upon collection I was greeted by a very tidy example of said forgotten Citroën medium sized hatchback, clearly owned by an older person as the light scuffs at all four corners would prove. But despite that, it had been well loved and incredibly well maintained. There are some other, rather charming, pointers as to the age group of the previous owners, too. A folder containing all sorts of leaflets and pamphlets for walking days out, holidays for the over 55s, hand drawn maps, tyre pressures and radio codes written down on post-it notes and a hand written fuel economy log came with the car. You’ll also find some household carpet in the back, perfectly cut to size and shape to protect the rear footwells and carpets. The driver’s side carpet floor mat is stitched with the owner’s initials.

As you can see from the above image, the rear seats have barely been sat on. Everything in the back is in really nice condition and the floor under the household carpet is basically brand new. There’s plenty of room in the back, too, and the one-piece bench seat is quite comfortable. There’s no 60/40 split on this car on account of it being pure entry level. There’s two inertia reel seat belts and a lap belt, pockets on the back of the front seats but no rear speakers – only the grilles.

Up at the front, we find it’s a bit more used, but there’s very little wear on the seats or the steering wheel. However, the storage compartment lids on the front doors have seen better days. We also get to see how wonderfully basic it is from the driver’s seat, too. There’s exercise windows all round, which I’m more than happy with, a manual driver’s mirror and an electric adjust for the passenger mirror, a radio cassette and no rev counter. In place of the rev counter is a massive clock (I said CLOCK). It’s so big, it’s a two hander. All controls are to your finger tips with the rear heated screen button on the end of the wiper stalk – very reminiscent of the Fiat Tipo. The horn is on the end of the indicator stalk, head lights are operated by turning the indicator stalk and the fog light function is on the same stalk. All brilliantly logical, as are the steering wheel controls for the radio cassette.

Like the 306, it has two glove boxes but it is very sombre for a Citroën, broken up only by some typically 1990s mad fabric stylings on the seats. As mentioned above, it’s all very logical and carrying on where the ZX left off, all very ergonomically sound. And because there’s a driver’s airbag, there’s no single spoke steering wheel either, though they were banished when the AX and XM were facelifted. The door bins are big enough to carry things and are wide enough to hold a bottle of fizzy drink, and there are two large storage containers on both front doors with lids forming part of the arm rest. At first glance you don’t realise there’s anything there, but they are useful for hiding things in, such as Pierre’s wife’s jewellery in the passenger door compartment and his mistress’s jewellery in the driver’s door compartment.

The boot is a very good size, too. It can fit all the baguettes and cheese you could hope for, but brilliantly there are straps behind the wheel arch area to keep your bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape upright and not rolling around the boot area. Thoughtful car.

What’s it like to drive, then? Well, more entertaining that it has any right to be. Let’s not forget these are essentially a rebodied ZX therefore the same underpinnings as the Peugeot 306. The steering is nicely weighted and it turns in with a fair amount of body roll but no drama. To be fair, I’d expect a reasonable amount of body roll as it’s a Citroën, but because of the ground clearance and suspension travel, the pay off is a really nice ride. Indeed, the ride makes light work of the appalling roads and potholes in Cornwall, and it’s certainly a fair few rungs up the ladder than our Skoda Fabia which rattles its interior to pieces as soon as it senses some gravel.

It’s no ball of fire, but it’s lively and quick enough. It’s a 1360cc engine from the TU family, which means robust, reliable and easy to fix should it go wrong. Developing 75bhp (when new, anyway) that’s enough to propel the Xsara to 62mph in around 12 seconds (when new, anyway) and on to a top speed of 107mph (when new, anyway). All joking aside, it feels like it could probably achieve the claimed 107mph top speed, but it’s too noisy to attempt it, plus there’s the question of legality, your honour.

What’s it been like in the last three months, and has anything fallen off? Well, yes. As is the way with Citroën gear knobs of this era, this one fell apart like an easter egg, but alas this was not covered by the Telescopic Warranty (out of sight, out of mind) provided by The Mr so-called Journalist I bought it from. No bother, I found a new identical gear knob on eBay for next to nothing and has now been fitted. Oh, and 85% of the central locking works 60% of the time. Other than that, it has been brilliant so far.

Especially as over the Christmas period, the Skoda decided it no longer wanted to provide the car with electricity and shat its alternator. As my wife has been using it for her 43 mile round trip to work, it was time to fire up the Xsara and drop my wife to work and pick her up each day, meaning it was doing 86 miles a day for the best part of two weeks. Mind, it did a 350 mile road test when I brought it home from Cambridgeshire. And we did Liverpool and back in a weekend at the start of December. Details of that trip can be found here.

Remember, All Of The Internet tells you all French cars are shite. Don’t believe them. I don’t have any plans for this except use it daily, maintain it and take it to Festival of the Unexceptional this year. I’ll say this quietly so’s my Rover can’t hear me, but I think I prefer this to my 216. Here’s to peasant spec Citroën motoring.