France is considered the home of so much luxury, from the best Champagne to the finest food to Hermes scarves and Dior perfume. Therein lies the odd dichotomy – when presented with the idea of a luxury French car, we baulk.
The Irish car-buying public clearly believes luxury cars are made only by the Germans, with some small allowances for the Japanese and the British.
For the French, that’s a problem because DS – originally a Citroen DS back in 1955 – was recreated as its own brand in 2014 with the express mission of taking French luxury out on four wheels and competing with the Germans.
The result? Last year, DS sold 123 new cars in Ireland. BMW sold 5,143. Advantage Germany.
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There are many reasons why premium-badge car buyers will stick with the German marques they’re used to, not least strong residual values and a reputation for build quality and solidity (one that, frankly, is occasionally more image than reality).
DS must find a way to prise open the minds of those buyers, or at least a few hundred of them. That starts with providing compelling product. The Irish launch of the new DS No.8 (a fully-electric SUV-coupe that has strong overtones of Rolls-Royce in its styling) and the relaunch of the old DS4 as the new DS No.4 might provide that. It will be bolstered towards the end of this year and into early 2027 with a new DS No.7 SUV. The rebranding of the company from just DS to DS Automobiles is perhaps of less interest to the car-buying public.
For Glin Donnelly, brand manager for DS amid the sprawling Gowan Auto importer empire, the first thing is to remind buyers and potential buyers that the Automobiles bit of DS Automobiles is the most important part. “If you just want something that’s transport, that gets you from A to B, there are plenty of other brands that can provide that for you. If you want to buy a car, come and talk to me,” Donnelly told The Irish Times.
His take is that DS is still building its brand, but recent efforts such as the use of DS models as official cars for Ireland Fashion Week have definitely helped to get some recognition up and running. “It’ll always be a slightly harder sell,” he says. “Like, a good restaurant doesn’t become a good restaurant overnight. People need to experience and sample it.”
That sense of prendre patience has been DS’s official position for a decade now – often citing that it took Audi 20 years or more to become a true premium brand – and it’s starting to wear a little thin. Surely, you’d think, DS doesn’t have much more time left in which to prove itself, not least with the Stellantis group (the vast automotive conglomerate that owns the DS brand) reaching for the cost-cutting shears.
Donnelly isn’t conscious of a countdown clock, though. He insists he’s happy to appeal to a relatively small corner of the car market that truly appreciates the cars – say, 1,000 people a year once the new DS No.7 is on forecourts. “It’s a car, it’s not just a mobility solution. It’s about a love affair with the car. It’s not about the efficiencies of CAD design; it’s about an individual human doing the design work.”
Indeed, DS is unique among its Stellantis group brethren – which includes Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat and Alfa Romeo – in having a bigger dedicated design staff, all based in the fashion capital of Paris.
“We recently had Paul Costelloe’s son over with us at Ireland Fashion Week. He got into the car and was talking about how his father would have loved the textures and the materials and the design and all of that. And that’s what we do, that’s what our brand is,” says Donnelly.
Well, a little celebrity fashion endorsement never hurt. What about the substance, though? What about the cars?
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The DS No.4 is coming in at a far more affordable price point than it used to. When originally launched three years ago, the DS4 cost more than €40,000 in its base trim, but the new one – in well-equipped Pallas spec – now clocks in at €35,995.
That allows it to compete with basic versions of the Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series, and it looks more visually appealing than the BMW. The 145hp 1.2 litre hybrid petrol engine proves decently powerful and frugal (figure on around 6.0 litres per 100km in real-world driving). It is smooth and refined at speed on the Irish autoroute – the M11 past Gorey. It’s even quite positive to drive around corners, almost surprisingly so (and definitely an improvement on the early DS4), but it’s let down a bit by the lack of rear-seat space and a few duff, cheap plastics in the otherwise pleasant cabin.
The DS No.8 is a different proposition. This is an all-electric (there won’t be a hybrid version) SUV with a low-slung roof and a truly appealing cabin.
True, the dread hand of the Stellantis cost cutters can be found even in here, but the No.8’s cabin does a generally terrific job of looking and feeling properly luxurious. The four-spoke steering wheel – reminiscent of the propellers on a Vickers Vimy aircraft – looks and feels good to hold. The low, wide touchscreen looks interesting, set against a counter-sunk dashboard, but as ever we’ll have a quick moan about a lack of physical controls, while the screen itself is a bit laggy in operation.
To drive, though? Lovely. We tested the front-wheel-drive Pallas version, the basic model, with a 73kWh battery, a 210hp motor and a claimed range of 550km, about 500km of which seems to be real-world useable.
It’s not quite as full-on wafty as the left-hand drive version we tried last year, with its optional road-scanning camera and adaptive suspension, but still quiet and comfortable enough to be a truly engaging long-haul companion. Worth trading up to the bigger-battery 97kWh version which has a claimed range of 750km? Possibly – that model won’t arrive until the late summer – but for most people, the standard-range No.8 should do the job just fine.
You’d be better advised to trade up to the top-spec Étoile model, which gets the no-cost option of a contrast black roof and bonnet, ramping up the Rolls-Royce vibes and which gains the road-scanning suspension.
A base price of €56,495 allows DS to put the cat among the wannabe premium pigeons a little. It undercuts the somewhat underwhelming Lexus RZ, for instance, while being far more convincing in its luxury and its driving experience than the likes of the Xpeng G6, to mention a potential Chinese rival which also has to establish its brand.
Donnelly also claims that the DS lineup has comparable PCP rates and residual values to the other Stellantis group brands, potentially wiping out one significant consumer worry (but come back to us in three years and we’ll see the reality of that).
Would you swerve the traditional German luxury brands to put yourself into a slice of mobile French luxury? And if not, why not?
