Price as tested: TBA
+ Groovy looks, lovely cabin, different, unique
– Tight rear space, ride too firm
= Attractively different, differently attractive
Shall we not mention the Renault Vel Satis?
The last time a 'mainstream' French car maker tried to convince us to buy a premium saloon that wasn't a saloon, it was Renault's tall, oddball hatch. And charming though it was, it failed utterly in the face of ultra-conservative saloon buyers. It wasn't a conventional three-box and it didn't have a German badge. So no thanks, said the Irish car buying public.
And now here comes Citroen, fresh from it's reinvention of the DS nameplate, expanding a classic singular into a modern three-pronged family of verging-on-premium models.
This then is the third prong of the rebirth of DS, the DS5, a car which will seek to pull in company user-choosers and upper-end family car buyers by being different, attractive and just a little bit luxurious.
And... It's not quite what we were expecting. With the C4-based DS4 occupying the space around the Qashqai-Golf-A3 kind of area, we expected the DS5 to be bigger by far. But it's not. In fact, it's based on the same basic chassis as the DS4 so although it's a little wider and longer, there's not the clear blue water between them that you'd expect.
That's good in one significant way though, and that's price. Official prices won't be revealed until closer to the February on-sale date but you can expect it to be about €2,500 more than an equivalent C5 saloon, which makes it a lot of luxury for the money.
On the outside it looks exceptionally distinctive. Perhaps not hopelessly gorgeous, but handsome, different and very eye-catching, especially with that chrome 'Sabre' blade running back from the headlights.
Around the back, there are hints of old-shape C4 Coupe, C6 (a little) and Smart Roadster Coupe but overall, it's a handsome beast.
Inside that's continued and with big, enveloping seats and a careful attention to cabin quality detail, the DS5 is a very pleasant place in which to spend time. There are a couple of glitches: the centre console switches are set too far back and the main instruments are a bit uninspiring, but if Citroen was trying to create a premium feel, then it has succeeded.
But not in the back and this is where the DS5's case starts to unravel a little. A car like this, with a DS badge, should be as spacious and as comfy as your lounge. Sadly though, the DS5 just lacks that last inch of knee, foot and headroom to feel properly luxurious in the back. Kids will be fine, adults will not and they're unlikely to be pleased with the cheaper plastics and fiddly electric window switches.
Thankfully the DS reclaims some ground with a big, well shaped 468-litre boot, so it is at least practical.
But what exactly is it? It's certainly no conventional saloon, and nor is it spacious enough to be an estate (Citroen's own, and excellent, C5 Tourer murders it in the practicality stakes) or high-riding enough to be an SUV. In fact, it tries, as so many have before, to combine elements of each into a coherent whole. And the big surprise is that it comes very close to doing so successfully. After all the last car to try and combine such virtues was the Fiat Croma and that was a car so bad as to be close to undriveable.
But the DS5 actually manages a decent fist of it. It's handsome enough to make you look past its lack of a separate boot, and in the front at least, comfy and stylish enough to make you believe in its pretensions of luxury. As ever with a Citroen, it’s the little details that sell it. That Sabre blade of chrome we’ve already mentioned, but then there’s the (optional) leather embossed with a gorgeous watch-strap pattern, the little hatch-like individual sunroofs over the driver and passenger, the neat Head Up Display, the aircraft-style switches in the roof and the pretty LED daytime running lights.
Dynamically, it's a mixed bag. Stick to wide, mostly smooth roads and the DS5 feels composed and positive to drive with well weighted steering and excellent body control.
Stray onto twistier, bumpier stretches though and it's not so good. The steering proves under-geared and the ride quality, certainly on the 19" alloys of our test car, was little better than poor, and far too firm and jiggly for a supposedly luxurious French car.
Fitted with a conventional six-speed automatic, the 160bhp 2.0 HDI diesel is lovely, keeping itself mostly quiet, proving itself very punchy and suppressing its emissions and consumption to acceptable levels. There will be a 110bhp eHDI version that uses Citroen's annoyingly jerky EGS automated manual but manages Band A emissions and a very high tech Hybrid4 that keeps the 160bhp diesel, adds a battery-powered rear axle and provides a combined 200bhp with 99g/km emissions. Impressive stuff, but a brief spin showed that it too is hobbled by the awkward EGS box and we didn't have it long enough to see if it can get close to its claimed 3.8-litre per 100km combined fuel consumption figure. If not, then the regular HDI has a still-excellent balance of consumption and performance, and doesn't sacrifice boot space to the Hybrid's bulky battery pack.
What Citroen has wrought with the DS5 is... interesting. To be honest, I doubt that the blinkered Irish car buyer, wracked with conservatism, will ever see past the horde of more conventional three-box shapes that stand between him and the DS5. But for the 150 or so people Citroen Ireland expects to snap one up, there is something very good here.
Yes, the ride needs fixing, and if you must regularly carry adults in the back then you're better off with a C5, but as ever, Citroen has decided to stretch it's legs out onto the precipitous high-wire marked 'different' and thank god that it's prepared to do so. Perhaps the best illustration of the DS5’s character is to look up its safety rating on www.euroncap.com Quite apart from the fact that it scores exceptionally highly in all aspects of safety, there’s the little panel underneath to contrast it with ‘Comparable Cars.’ None are listed...
Facts & Figures
Citroen DS5 2.0 HDI Auto
Price as tested: TBA
Price range: TBA
On sale: February 2012
Capacity: 1,997cc
Power: 163bhp
Torque: 340Nm
Top speed: 215kmh
0-100kmh: 8.8sec
Economy: 5.1l-100km (51.3mpg)
CO2 emissions: 133g/km (129g/km with 16” wheels)
Road Tax Band: B €156
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star adult: 89% adult, 83% child, 40% pedestrian, 97% safety assist
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