Citroën Basalt Review: Is French Flair Enough?

Named for the earth’s most abundant igneous rock, say bonjour to the Citroën Basalt. This is the fourth model from the French brand in India and it's entering a new subsegment within the compact SUV space – the new mass model Compact Coupé SUV.

Citroën Basalt: Exterior

A cleverly done what they call a jewel finish taillight. It kind of protrudes out, it’s big, chunky and makes the car look a little upmarket. And it’s clever because it’s not LED but it looks like LED and that’s the point right? This is a vehicle that is built to a cost, the Basalt like the C3 and C3 Aircross. But the design is the redeeming factor for most Citroëns and so in India too, we find the design makes the car not look like that. Now the Coupe SUV body style, that’s what this whole thing is about, so let’s focus on that. The roof swoops down nicely, as this body style goes, yes it's nice and proportionate. In fact possibly more proportionate than the other one, you know which one I mean. And you know it’s not something I’m a big fan of, to begin with. In my head, this is almost like how sedans are going to be now. Think about it like a boosted-up sedan in some senses. Now to enhance that feeling of the nice lengthened coupe roofline, you have this little black element that’s just into the C-Pillar. It’s interesting and there’s a little stripe on it. They call it a Colour Clip. And this one’s finished in like a bronze gold kind of a finish. Initially, it bothered me because why is that bronze and why is the wheel finished in chrome and then you’ve got a similar sort of a stripe here that’s also finished in chrome. But then I found out that it depends on the variants and the body colour. That colour clip could also be yellow or it could also be red. So it’s just a little design quirk. It’s something which becomes the signature of this car, something the C3 Aircross doesn’t have. So you also see it up here in the bumper where it’s vertical and horizontal on the C-pillar. Now the reason I brought up the C3 Aircross is because of course this car is based on that, we always knew that. You see that in the hood, you see that in the grille, and you see that in that logo. But it’s the elements in the bumper that are slightly differently finished. There’s a little bit of exaggerated, added-on chrome to sort of make it more upmarket-looking. But the biggest difference is the headlamp cluster, you actually get LED lights in this one. Citroën said it took some of the market feedback saying things that made that car look a little cheap. Well, they’ve tried to enhance that with this one in terms of finish, in terms of some of the fit and then of course elements like LEDs.

Now globally Citroën has moved to the new logo, it’s upright. It’s like the historic one in an oval. This is I think more to do with the fact that it needs to match its family members here in India. The colour here is called Garnet Red, which is a brand-new colour. It is the positioning colour for this car. The two-tone black roof is only on some variants. Okay, some panel gaps remain imperfect, but overall the Basalt looks good but now let’s show you its cabin – Satvik has more on that.

Citroën Basalt: Tech & Interior

The Basalt is a good-looking vehicle and that continues inside as well. It gets a similar layout for the dashboard as the C3 Aircross, with similar placement for the AC vents and even the dashboard inlays here. It gets the same 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system as the C3 Aircross with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a 7-inch digital instrument cluster, a wireless charger which interestingly has the new Citroën logo, a new centre armrest and a new automatic climate control. Well strangely if I have to turn on the AC I just have to press any of the three buttons here but if I have to turn it off, I have to turn down the blower all the to the bottom where it goes to off. A button just saying AC off would have been a nice touch. The centre armrest and the AC controls along with a few other things are going to make their to the C3 and the C3 Aircross very soon. The materials on the dashboard have improved but on the doors, it’s not that great. It’s good to see Citroën working on improving the plastic quality and finish, but it still has ways to go before that can be termed wow.

The space in the back seat for a coupe SUV is amazing. There is lots of headroom for someone with a 5’11” body structure. The seats are very comfortable, so are at the front. The material of the fabric used is much much better than before. Now it has airplane style headrests at the back seat and that just increases the comfort quotient for the rear passengers, but that’s not all.

The Basalt has a very unique feature, it's the tilt seat cushion with three settings and at its highest setting, it’s very comfortable and you’d call it, good under-thigh support. But very strangely, Citroën is only giving it with the automatic gearbox and not the manual. Why Citroën?

Citroën Basalt: Safety

Safety has been a concern with Citroën models recently, and to address that the entire portfolio will be getting features like six airbags, ISOFIX and three-point seatbelts with reminders for all seats as standard, starting with the Basalt. Great! But you know what’s better, making the structure better than before. Citroën claims it has used ultra-high strength steel at important places in the chassis. We’ll only know for sure on how well all of this has worked once either Global NCAP or Bharat NCAP results are in.

Citroën Basalt: Performance

Familiar territory with the powertrain because of course it’s shared with the C3 Aircross, familiar also because of its performance. The way it sounds, the way it responds, all too familiar. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that because that’s the one thing I remember liking about that car more than the other things. It does feel surprisingly better than what you’d expect to feel in city traffic with this gearbox, though the picture changes a little bit. Now the gearbox itself, I can say, is also familiar because finally you do have the automatic setup on the SUV but here on the coupe from word go, you’re getting the automatic. Thank god! Now that gearbox itself is a little bit sluggish and so you get a feeling of lag, you start to feel the engine’s hesitating a little bit. So that control that you had over the response on the manual, that’s just not there with this one and then again like I said that’s not specific to this car, it’s specific to the gearbox.

The Basalt also gets the naturally aspirated petrol engine as an option, right from the start. Something that was missing with the C3 Aircross, and is a carry-over from the C3 hatch. This points to aggressive plans with entry-model pricing. The same will happen on the C3 Aircross within a few weeks. The turbo gets the automatic though and its manual version is a 6-speed. Satvik drove that turbo manual, and while control over the response is very much still there. The gearshifts do feel a tad rubbery, and there’s a long travel in the clutch pedal.

Citroën Basalt: Ride & Handling

So just as your mind starts to tell you about how there are things that feel less than, the ride and handling starts to play that redeeming role like how the design was playing as well. So that’s I think the one thing again that worked for the C3 Aircross, it does work for the Basalt. So for all the little chinks that show up on the performance, it’s the suspension that really swoops in and makes things better. And you know what, I sitting at the back as well earlier when my colleague Anand was driving and I can tell you even at the back the car feels surprisingly comfortable and also that whole sloping roofline. No problem.

But a lot of these Basalt reviews are going to have the line "just like the C3 Aircross so". Just like the C3 Aircross, freakishly small steering wheel. you get used to it though.

Citroën Basalt: Price & Verdict

So Citroën’s design team has done its bit, its engineers have added some of the missing bits that weren’t available on the C3 Aircross but as I said at the start, the car still feels built to a price. So that is eventually what’s going to decide how it does, the price. Will it be killer pricing? Comme ci, comme ca.

Ah, so here comes that clincher. The indication is the Basalt could start at a very aggressive ₹8 lakh (ex-showroom, India) and top off at ₹10 lakh for the PureTech 82 manual variants. The turbo should start just under ₹10 lakhs and top off at around ₹13.5 or 14 lakh for manual and auto. That means severely undercutting the competition, and creating a new entry subset in the compact SUV space. So since the Basalt drives relatively well, looks like a million bucks and is fairly comfy, and with those prices – it looks like a winner. Now, will Stellantis market this one better?