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The Saxo is an older design which is no longer being developed by Citroen, and a new model is about a year away. The performance is at the bottom end of the cars under test. The child restraint performance was better than for a number of newer cars tested in this phase of Euro NCAP.

Front impact
The steering wheel moved more than allowed in the crash and the driver’s head reached a point where it was starting to move off the airbag which in some circumstance can become dangerous. The airbag also bottomed-out so allowing the driver’s head to contact the steering wheel. The body shell was defeated by the severity of the test and the occupant’s survival space was compromised. Despite load limiters being fitted to the front seat belts the chest loads were high. The front seat belts are also fitted with pretensioners which are designed to limit forward movement in the event of a crash. The door opened during the test and which was caused by the linkage being operated when the door’s inner skin separated from the outer. There were aggressively hard structures under the facia that would cause injuries to the knees and upper legs. Only a simple two point static belt was fitted in the centre rear seat, which can cause severe spinal and abdominal injuries.

Side impact
There is no specific structure in the Saxo doors to combat side impact. The chest and arm were hit by the incoming door, whilst the abdomen was contacted by the protruding armrest. The pelvis was loaded by a foam block. The loading on the chest gave rise to the risk of severe injury with only a slightly less risk of injury to the abdomen and pelvis.

Child-protection
The child restraints were both forward facing and provided very good protection in the frontal test except that for the 1½-half-year old’s neck loads were high, which is a common failing for forward facing seats. In the side impact the seats were also good performers except that the 3-year-old’s seat did not keep the child’s head contained within the seat wings.

Pedestrian protection
As with most of the cars we have tested in this class the pedestrian protection score come almost entirely from the adult and child impact assessments. However two of the leg impact sites were also graded as giving weak protection.