The Picasso
Art on wheels. Sometimes in a ditch. Always a family car.
Sundown somewhere north. Yellow lamps, orange beacon, start 3071 on the door. The sun is trying harder than the heater.
Why a Picasso
Because a Citroën Xsara Picasso is the correct amount of car for a winter rally that is also a dare. It was drawn in the late nineties to carry children, shopping and a mild sense of optimism. We have replaced the children with spare gold wheels, the shopping with gaffer tape, and the optimism with an orange rotating beacon.
People ask if it is ironic. It is not ironic. It is a Picasso. It has sliding-scale grip, the turning circle of a small roundabout, and the aerodynamic profile of a garden shed that learned to love. PSA built millions of these. We took one to Norway. That is the whole factory programme.
Declared specification
| Make / model | Citroën Xsara Picasso (the frog-faced one, as nature intended) |
|---|---|
| Colour | Faded teal / “left out in the 2000s” |
| Plate | LAN 10C |
| Start no. | 3071 |
| Engine | Yes. Transverse. PSA. Opens for ritual inspection at every coffee stop. |
| Drive | Front-wheel, occasionally no-wheel (see snowbank) |
| Wheels | Gold. Always gold. Three extras ride in the boot like very round team-mates. |
| Lamps | Twin yellow round fogs on the nose. Orange roof beacon so the rest of the field has time to laugh. |
| Sunstrip | MULTI-SPORT — we did not put it there to be modest |
| Bay lighting | Ice-blue LEDs. Because 2004 never died, it just moved under the bonnet. |
| Lettering | DILFORCE DOMINIATON — gold, freehand, historically accurate |
| Rear window | Comic bubble: “Use the force, good…” |
| Flag | Sweden, taped on with the same confidence as the rest of the build |
| 0–ditch | Recorded. Not published. |
Garage queen, briefly
HQ. Fluorescent tubes, spare tyres on the wall, three gold wheels on the floor, one Swedish flag, and the missing N, immortalised in vinyl.
Service interval: whenever
A Picasso’s traditional greeting: bonnet at 90 degrees, sheepskin coat, one man who has become the engine. The blue LED is moral support.
