ADDING a welcome touch of colour to the Citroen C3 Pluriel range, it's the Kiwi Special Edition. Jonathan Crouch reports.

There's something quite refreshing about the concept of an affordable little convertible for less than £12,500. Particularly when it comes with air conditioning and black leather upholstery. You might not be surprised to learn that the car in question is a Citroen, the special edition Kiwi version of its C3 Pluriel.

The actual price of this car is £14,690 but a range of current offers should enable you to get your hands on one for just under the £12,500 mark.

That sum buys you the aforementioned black upholstery and air conditioning, plus what Citroen call the car’s ‘eye-catching’ yellowy/green metallic ‘Kiwi’ body colour, the only hue this car comes in. Additional features include leather trim for the door handles and gearstick, plus alloy wheels.

Normal Pluriel features include electric folding door mirrors, variable power steering, remote central locking with deadlocks, four electric windows and a CD player.

Moreover, an impressive 4-star Euro NCAP rating ensures that the Kiwi not only looks good, but is one of the safest small cars around too.

A supermini during the winter months and a convertible during the summer, the C3 Pluriel offers real flexibility.

With the roof up, the Citroen offers space for four occupants and a generous boot, yet the opportunity to choose from a variety of set-ups, including the option of removing the roof arches, ensures that passengers can enjoy real wind-in-the-hair-motoring.

Power comes courtesy of a 75hp 1.4i petrol engine that returns in excess of 52mpg in out-of-town motoring.

Don’t expect road-burning performance. The 0-60mph sprint takes just under 14s and there’s a 99mph top speed.

The Pluriel is at its best being driven sedately with the featherweight steering and the soft suspension making for a suitably relaxing experience.

Down on the Cote d’Azur, wealthy individuals pay well over £100,000 for high performance supercars and other exotica so they can crawl along the sea front at a snail’s pace.

With the C3 Pluriel Kiwi, you can get a model that could have been built for exactly this purpose but at a tenth of the cost. It won’t even hit your bank account hard when you’re driving it – buyers can reasonably expect to average over 40mpg even in town and the CO2 emissions are 163g/km.

All Pluriel models feature electric windows, electric mirrors, remote central locking, CD player and electrically-operated canvas roof.

One key drawback of the Pluriel’s design is that the bulky roof rails cannot be stored in the car on removal, instead residing in their holder in your garage.

Therefore, you don’t have the option of pulling over to the roadside and dropping the roof to form a full convertible as you can in most other drop-top models. Once you have left the rails at home, you’re committed to open top motoring for the day, come rain or shine.

There are drawbacks to the C3 Pluriel but these should always be framed within the context of its price. If you want a new convertible supermini on a sub-£12,500 budget, you’re going to be out of luck virtually anywhere but at your local Citroen dealership.

The Kiwi special edition model enhances the Pluriel’s case a further notch or two with a desirable set of cosmetic extras that will cut a dash on your local high street.

FACTFILE

Citroen C3 Pluriel Kiwi

PRICE: £14,690 (£12,495 including current special offers) on the road

INSURANCE GROUP: 4

PERFORMANCE: 0-60 13.9s. Top speed 99mph

FUEL CONSUMPTION: (urban) 31mpg/(extra urban) 52mpg/(combined) 41.5mpg

STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front and side airbags, ABS with EBA and EBD