FIRST DRIVE CITROËN DS5:CITROËN DEFIES easy definition. In its time it has offered us the tedious Saxo, the presidential DS and the populist 2CV. It has been the brand of choice for French presidents and peasants, for strait-laced civil servants and the iconoclastic intelligentsia.
A few generations later and you have the sleek beauty of the C6 alongside the bargain-basement C1. And the contradictions continue with Citroën’s failure to marry the phenomenal success of its World Rally team to sales by offering any kind of hot hatch, or even tepid hatch, over the years.
In this environment, where product strategy seems to be determined by a dartboard and a blindfold, the iconic DS range, moniker for the Citroën’s innovative limousine, was relaunched as a supermini with the DS3. It seemed a strange way to reintroduce the brand’s only successful foray into the premium-car market.
Despite its anarchic product mix, Citroën is home to some of the most inspiring, breathtaking concept designs in motoring. Several of those have laid the foundations for the arrival of this much-heralded flagship for the DS revival.
The DS5 is a risky venture for Citroën, given the dismal history of French brands dipping their toes into producing premium cars. Most limp away having further fuelled the oversized egos of the German brands.
The DS5 is a five-seat family hatchback the size of an estate: a crossover with SUV pretensions. It’s a car with the badge of a mainstream brand but an interior as plush as that of a luxury sports car. It looks bulky, beefy, sleek and sporty all at once, depending on the angle you look at it from. And it comes with the latest in diesel-hybrid innovation, yet its foundation is the tried and tested PSA platform that underpins, among others, the C4 and Peugeot 308.
It’s meant to lure Audi or BMW customers, but it will also attract those who have until now opted for five-seater people carriers such as the Ford C-Max. Likely to start at €30,000, it’s at the upper end of the price scale for such cars, but sitting inside you can see why it might be a viable alternative to some premium saloons.
Any Walter Mitty fantasies you might harbour as a flight captain will be fulfilled by its roof-mounted switches and driver-orientated binnacle. The leather seats are styled to mimic the criss-cross of a luxury watch strap. From quality plastics and switchgear to smart comfort features, this cabin is better than those of most cars within its price range.
In the back there’s legroom to comfortably handle any adult size, and the 465-litre boot is on a par with BMW’s 3-series Touring.
Power comes from three engine variations: the BMW-derived 1.6-litre petrol, the 1.6-litre 110bhp HDi or 2.0-litre 160bhp HDi diesel, or the diesel-electric hybrid, which already features in the Peugeot 3008 and may be the star of the range.
This DS5 hybrid promises fuel economy of 3.8 litres/100km and emissions of less than 100g/km (with 17in wheels). On mixed roads Citroën claims a fuel saving of 20 per cent over regular diesels, rising to 35 per cent if most of your driving is in town.
In one test drive we drove 77km, and although full electric mode is reserved to speeds below 65km/h and distances of 5km before reverting back to the diesel powertrain, when battery power is recharged from braking and from the engine, we managed 14km of our trip solely in electric mode.
This is Citroën’s first production hybrid, and with the electric motor driving the back wheels and the 163bhp 2.0-litre HDi engine the front ones, the DS5 is effectively a four-wheel drive. It makes up to 37bhp in sport mode, for a total output of 200bhp and a 0-100km/h time of 8.6 seconds.
It has been tuned towards a more sporting driving style and, although the mechanical automatic gearbox on the hybrid is clunky, the steering is responsive. The ride is too harsh, however, for what is in effect a flexible, stylish family car. The attractive 19in alloys didn’t help the quality of the ride. And with the hybrid the 100kg battery pack reduces boot space to 325 litres.
So can the DS5 resurrect the brand’s reputation among middle-class family buyers? Its unique styling and fuel economy will lure newcomers to Citroën showrooms. It’s a desirable family saloon and possibly the best of the new DS range. But many French car executives have brought forth a quasi-premium entrant only to be left with a lot of unsold metal. With that proviso in mind, there’s still a lot of opportunities for the DS5.