It might have seemed a bit much for Citroen to do so many takes on the C3 supermini. The Pluriel all-things-to-some people, now the C2, and later a C1 A-segment car which will be a joint venture with Toyota.

It just begs for confusing the buyers.

But perhaps Citroen have just recognised a simple fact. That, like in television audiences, the car market has become extraordinarily fragmented.

The 'me' generation is no longer a shoal of fish all swimming in unison. It is an incoherent scatter of darting silvers, all intent on getting their their own share of whatever life has out there.

In car terms, all you have to do is watch the traffic 'patterns' on any busy road. There aren't any.

When so many people want 'to be different', and try to match their transportation choices exactly to their daily lives, it makes it hard on the carmakers.

It leaves them trying to have too many versions of a particular model. Ford, for instance, have 3- and 5-door Fiestas and a Fusion, essentially the same cars with different body types aimed at three different kinds of buyers.

Citroen could have simply built a 3-door version of the C3 to offer the 'youth' market in the segment. Maybe a bit of glitz, cosmetic sportiness.

But instead they built a new car. Sharing underpinnings and some of the interior with the 5-door, but very clearly in the metal something quite different.

The C3 is cuddly and the C2 is sharp.

Both are curvy in essentials, but a shift of lines and detail in the C2 totally changes the game.

The deeper front airdam, and the angular but flush-to-the-bonnet-curve double-decker lights shift the profile's emphasis entirely.

And the deep cut of the rear side windows is so skilfully done that what could have been a disaster is likely to become a classic theme.

Then they did a scut-cut to the back, added a sexy split rear hatch, and sweet was transformed to cool.

An 'urban sports car' is a marketeer's invention in an era when every carmaker feels they have to establish a whole new segment of their own.

Except the C2 could really well be just that, with a couple of mild alterations.

But before we go there, lets see the inside of the car.

The dashboard, instrumentation, and space in the front seats area are all straight C3. In fact, the designer told me the elbow room in the C2 is even better, because of changes to the doors trim and furniture.

That trim is quite snazzy in an understated way: I think some more brash is available in countries less conservative than us.

The rear section has a brace of sporty looking seats which can't hide the fact that if anybody up front is longer in limb than your usual five-foot-niner, someone in the back would need to to be legless to fit.

Even with those seats slid backward, a feature of which much is made as an option to make more 'legroom' or luggage room.

But not everyone is lanky, right?

Aft of those same seats is a small luggage space, accessible in the first instance by lifting the glass part of the tailgate. The same tailgate can be dropped a la a pickup. You can even sit on it as long as you don't weigh more than 100 kg. And it has a little compartment for secreting small things, maybe a couple of foldable umbrellas?

You can flip and roll the rear seats. But to do the roll bit, very little space is left for those in front.

If I owned this one I'd have the two rear seats removed, and have a special lid built to give me a secure storage area and a decent flat luggage space above it, and then I'd have a great little car.

Because when you sit in and fire up even the base 1.1-litre engine and run the C2 out on the road, it has a personality that is exactly what the 'urban sports car' describes. It has verve, pizzazz, at the same time the economy and ease of use of the Saxo that it replaces (it is even shorter) ... and it is just fun.

All that even before you get into the 1.4-litre VTR, which is what they promote as the REAL sporty version ...

But back to basics. Oddly enough, the C2 is wider and higher than the main competition in the segment - Clio, 206 and Corsa.

It is just too short to be a true 4-seater.

Never mind. If you need those other two seats, you'll buy a C3, won't you?

It's all a question of niche, and which one you fit into.

Meantime, I'm taking the C2 out again before I leave it back. It IS fun. It looks fun. It has four airbags in the event of me being terribly stupid. But with a 14.4sec 0-100 km/h sprint in the 1.1, and a slightly less sleepy 12.2sec with the 1.4, that is rather unlikely.

With the basic car available from €13,950, the SX we're talking about is €14,650, which adds electric windows and those sliding seats.

In the brochure they have a picture of the C2 perched on the brink of a skateboard drop.

I expect sometime they'll put in a 2-litre with a couple of hundred horsepower and have a blast.