I was in France last week and reserved a "mid-sized" (C-segment) car from Sixt - they gave me a Citroen C4. I didn't get offered choices, but it's all interesting, as anything I get will be new to me. Photo of glorious steed below:
I put about 1600km on it over the course of my visit. This consisted of a long drive down from Paris to the Perigord on the A10 and A20, and then when I was down there lots and lots of 2-lane roads ranging from fairly fast highways to paved goat trails.
Doesn't have particularly inspired handling, but it rides really well. It was extremely comfortable on the autoroute and wasn't bad on the B-roads - handling was nothing special, but decent. I think it had the highest output diesel (2.0L, 150bhp or so) as it was quick, and had terrific midrange torque. Powertrain was very refined, clutch and shifter were good. Not so much steering feel, but at least it was linear.
I haven't driven many newer cars (other than my 2003 appliance car) since I was an engineer at Chrysler 8-10 years ago and drove lots of new cars, and I do find myself impressed by some of the equipment that new cars come with, and the refinement. Adaptive headlamps with cornering lamp function built into the fog lamps, hill holder on the clutch, you can set the cruise control to recognize speed limits and observe them, and it also had a programmable speed limiter function in the cruise control. I had no idea you could get light vehicles with this; apparently it's relatively common in Europe. Nav system was really good. I am not used to them since I Don't drive cars with hav and navigate with maps, but I was impressed with it.
Altogether, while I'd prefer something with better dynamic qualities (like a Golf, I suppose, but I imagine even a Peugeot 308 would have handled better) this kind of hit a lot of 'want' points and reminds me why I've been wanting to replace my Accord for the least year and a half with a hatchback this size. And it makes me wish we could get more diesels of this size in the US. I love the flexibility, it was quick enough, and I think I was getting the equivalent of at least mid 40s mpg (USG) on the autoroute, doing 130-140kph.
Now I can just go replace my low-mileage Honda with a Mk V or Mk VI Volkswagen diesel. What could possibly go wrong?!