• Plenty of passenger space
• One of the biggest city car boots
• Flexible interior storage

How much space is there?

The Picanto has one of the most spacious interiors among its rivals – along with the Hyundai i10 it’s a rare city car that can actually accommodate four six-foot adults, though they wouldn’t necessarily want to spend a long journey back there. And though some versions of the Picanto do come with three seatbelts in the rear, don’t expect to transport a rugby team – three slim teenagers is about the limit here. You certainly won’t fit another person between two bulky child seats.

This is all par for the course with a city car, though, and the Picanto is among the most accommodating of its rivals – though the tall Suzuki Ignis gives it a run for its money.

All Picantos have five doors, and the rear doors open nice and wide making it easy to get child seats in and out. There are Isofix points on both outer rear seats.

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Boot space and storage

The Picanto’s 255-litre boot is impressive for such a small car. It’s on a par with the Hyundai i10 and Volkswagen Up, bests the Toyota Aygo X and is only beaten for capacity by the Suzuki Ignis.

It’s a very practical space too, free of wheelarch intrusion and with a nice wide opening. There’s a little bit of a drop down from a high load lip which you need to hoick items over, but you can mitigate this with the adjustable boot floor on some models. This same adjustable floor allows the rear seats to lie totally flat when they’re folded down, which they do in a 60:40 split.

Interior storage is good too. You get a useful shelf ahead of the gearlever which is ideal for holding your smartphone, while the cupholders pop out at the touch of a button allowing you to choose between holding drinks or a useful oddment storage tray. The USB port, for charging devices and connecting to the infotainment, is also ideally located just below aforementioned shelf.

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Safety

• Acceptable safety levels for a city car
• Safety kit available
• Lags behind the best though

When tested in 2017 the Picanto only scored a three-star rating with Euro NCAP, rising to four stars for versions fitted with autonomous emergency braking. All models available in the UK now come with AEB as standard, however, so consider it a four-star car – albeit one tested under less stringent protocols than some of its rivals.

The Toyota Aygo X, for example, scored four stars under the 2022 tests, suggesting it’s a safer car. It certainly has more up-to-date equipment – the Picanto doesn’t enjoy any kind of lane-keeping aid, for example.