Why the Citroen Spacetourer is a breath of fresh air

SOMEONE at Citroën is clearly a kindred spirit. They know what it’s like to grow up as part of a larger family – and they’ve come up with a solution.

Growing up with lots of brothers and sisters has all sorts of problems. For starters they eat into the parental funds that should rightfully be reserved for the BMX and games console of your choice, and getting ten minutes in the bathroom in the mornings requires the sort of planning that’d give the scientists at CERN sleepless nights. Growing up in that brief period of history with dial-up internet connections made it even worse; I vividly remember the rows over who got access to the one computer and the looks I’d get when a squawking modem would disconnect my sisters’ phone calls.

But worst of all was having to cram into the back of my parents’ Land Rover, because that was one of the few vehicles that had the requisite eight seats. Every childhood holiday involved sitting on side-facing benches in the back of a bouncy old 4x4, but at least Land Rovers are vaguely fashionable; just about the only alternative was sourcing a Ford Transit minibus, which would have killed my passion for cars stone dead at the age of nine.

Even today getting more than eight seats in your wagon’s tricky. At the last count I found just four on offer; Ford’s Tourneo Custom, Mercedes-Benz’s Vito Tourer, Volkswagen’s Transporter Shuttle and the badge engineered, virtually identical twins that are Renault’s Trafic and Vauxhall’s Vivaro Combi. The anoraks among you will already spotted what they’ve got in common. While none are especially nasty to drive, they’re all based on vans rather than cars.

Which is why Citroën’s new Spacetourer will be a breath of fresh air for over-productive parents and taxi firms specialising in airport runs and picking up groups of plastered partygoers from Liverpool city centre. It’s got nine seats so it’ll be able to heave each and every one of your offspring about, but rather than being a van with more windows and seats it’s basically the same as the Peugeot 308 underneath. So it’s 2014’s European Car of the Year with an extra four seatbelts.

Which is great. Someone on the other side of the Channel has realised parents who have more than five children might want to drive something other than a Transit van with some seats bolted into the back – and that hopefully will encourage other car makers to offer up rivals to the Spacetourer.

It hits the showrooms later this year – if you are looking for something vaguely interesting to cart your six children to school in it, it’s well worth thinking about.