If you want to get your non-German car company to the ratsmodee as soon as possible: make a big sedan or station. Or is the new Citroën C5 X the exception that proves the rule?
Call it naive, call it stupid, but at least call it brave. What possesses Citroën to try again with a large car in the higher segment, a part of the market in which it may have a grandiose tradition, but which is largely characterized by at least as grandiose failures? Cars like the DS, CX, XM, C6 – they generally received a lot of praise for their innovativeness, individuality and comfort, but they sell in large numbers, just kidding.
The buyers in this segment are stiff
There were good reasons for that. For example, the technology, no matter how progressive, often turned out to be vulnerable at best and simply unreliable at worst. But more important was the extremely conservative nature of the buyers in this segment. They just bought German, period. Maybe once a Volvo, but it rarely if ever got much crazier.
That was not necessarily Citroën’s fault – all competitors from non-German soil ran into that wall. Just ask Renault, Peugeot, Alfa, Lancia or the many Eastern brands that have tried it. Or you know what: never mind. They just get grumpy.
So why the Citroën C5 X?
So why come again with a big car? Well, Citroën says it also has good reasons for it. First, that history. Big cars belong to the brand, they say. It’s in their DNA, it’s just part of it. Not the best or, given the ‘successes’, the most historically conscious argument, we think.
The second is just as shaky: the French are betting that ‘people’ will soon get tired of all those SUVs and will look for something else. Now that would be possible (we can hope so), but then the Germans will still be there. “And that’s why we did something different,” says Citroën. “That’s why we made a cross between a sedan, a station and an SUV: voila, the Citroën C5 X!”
Or is the Citroën C5 X a hatchback?
Okay, sounds intriguing. Until you take a closer look at him and come to the conclusion that he is certainly not a sedan, hardly a station wagon and certainly not an SUV. For example, it has no separate trunk, but just a fifth door, which makes it a hatchback or, at its most unusual, a fastback.
This then gives access to a nice rectangular cargo space, which, with a minimum of 485 and a maximum of 1,580 liters, gives way to competitors such as the VW Passat Variant (650-1,780 liters) and also the ‘own’ Peugeot 508 SW (530-1,780 liters). .
Now that is partly due to the 70-litre section under the load floor that was sacrificed to the batteries in our Hybrid case, but still. And SUV? Well, a slightly (but not so much) higher seat than normal and some plastic around the wheel arches do not make a car an SUV.
Citroen does not agree with us
We have to see that differently, says Citroën. The C5 X has “the elegance of a sedan, the versatility of a station and the robustness of an SUV.” Ah. In any case, it is a separate design that will not immediately appeal to everyone.
And that’s how it should be with a real Citroën, we would like to add. His illustrious predecessors were not everyone’s friends either, but each and every one of them cars that are still special today. You can hardly claim that of 90 percent of the other designs in this class.
The front is clearly based on that of the new C4 and looks impressive with its striking LED lighting that extends from the ‘chevrons’. The silhouette is elegant, with that sloping roofline, and powerful through the Kardashian hips.
Only that rear does not stick with us – especially that huge rear spoiler looks a bit clunky and seems to break the lines rather than add force. It’s a strange design that keeps you on the wrong track, that one time you find beautiful and the other ‘meh’. Time will tell.
The interior of the Citroën C5 X
The interior is less controversial. Digital meters, a large screen, fortunately quite a few buttons that are often in the place where you expect them. The seats are large, soft and comfortable, although they do not offer too much lateral support. Not a big deal, we’ll come back to that later.
The materials are generally beautiful and well processed, with the pattern of the inlays and the stitching showing the double chevrons of the brand logo. Tastefully done.
Although not too much has been deliberately tried to give it a ‘premium’ atmosphere, because that is what luxury brother DS was created for, a few elements have been borrowed from that brand, such as the button for the driving modes. This ‘non-premium’ is also mainly reflected in not very high-quality plastics in places that matter just a little less.
There are actually buttons in the C5 X
The operation is relatively simple. The infotainment is completely new and not made too complicated. It works with ’tiles’ that you can arrange according to your own taste. Fortunately, Citroën has resisted the temptation to throw everything into that touchscreen right away – the climate control just has its own row of physical buttons, and there is also a whole series on the steering wheel. The fact that everything is reasonably well-arranged does not mean that everything is easy to find.
Example: in our C5 X was a beautiful head-up color display (standard on the Shine and Business Plus) that also displays the navigation instructions. Until at some point he decided not to do that anymore. We’ve been trying to figure out where we could set that up, but in vain.
Now our partner often says that it would make a huge difference if we were only half as good at searching as we claim, or a quarter as good at actually finding something. In other words, it could also be us. The same probably applies to the navi on the big screen; that does not always excel in clarity, which means that we often drove wrong. Oh, that’s how you get (n)somewhere.
The Citroën C5 X is old-fashioned comfortable
However, the undisputed highlight of the Citroën C5 X is the way it drives. This is really a car in which comfort is written with old-fashioned capital letters. True to the tradition of the great French of yesteryear, the C5 X whizzes down the road and really doesn’t care about anything, so you don’t have to either.
Everything is used: from extra dampers on the dampers to camera electronics that scan the road surface and ‘prepare’ the chassis for all the misery it will encounter there. The front and side windows are laminated so as not to tire your poor ears with sounds that belong to the evil outside world, and not to bother you. And it must be said: it works.
The specifications
The drivetrain also cooperates. Our Citroën C5 X is the plug-in hybrid, which delivers a system power of 225 hp. Enough to always have something left, too little to constantly stir you up. It will come as no surprise that it is whisper-quiet during its more than 50 electric kilometers, but even if the petrol engine does participate, you hear next to nothing. A 0-to-100’je he does in 8.9 seconds and he tops 225 km/h. But those are actually completely irrelevant numbers. Because.
We have rarely come across a car as relaxed as this one. The rest. The serenity. The pleasure. Delicious. We’ve also rarely come across a car that has such a misplaced Sport mode. It’s not even that he doesn’t do anything, that position.
It makes the response to the accelerator a bit smoother and something seems to be happening to the chassis, which we barely noticed. And it gives a little more weight to the steering, which is nice, because in the normal position it is so light and numb that you are almost bewildered watching what actually happens when you turn the steering wheel.
He wants you to drive calmly
No, it’s more that the whole car is like this not requires tossing and throwing, that after two turns you almost automatically feel your heart rate drop, your breathing becomes calm and you end up in a kind of Zen status. ‘What are you going to worry about? Take it easy. Have a good look around you. Relax, that’s how we’ll get there,” the C5 X seems to be saying to you. And damn, it works. again.
He can do it, you know, easily take a turn – where on the basis of the foregoing you would expect that he would immediately hang wildly understeering on one ear, nothing could be further from the truth. The carriage remains neatly tight, the tires do not squeak, nothing. But where that kind of behavior in other cars often provides a certain satisfaction, with this Citroën you only wonder why you are so terribly biased. Do we have to be somewhere? Do we have to prove something, compensate something? Oh no? Then chill!
For that reason alone it is a special case, that Citroën C5 X. And a welcome case, because can you imagine that there are a lot of people who are looking for exactly that, for a car that does not swim in the stream of SUVs, which does not want to go crazy let the delusions of everyday life drag you into it in a stress-reducing way? We do.
Specifications Citroën C5 X Hybrid 225 Shine
(2022)
engine
1,598 cc
four-cylinder turbo hybrid
225 hp
360 Nm
Drive
front wheels
8v automatic
Performance
0-100 km/h in 8.9 sec
top 225 km/h
Consumption (average)
1.3 l/100 km
30 g/km CO2, A label
Dimensions
4,805 x 1,859 x 1,485mm (lxwxh)
2,785mm (wheelbase)
1,697 kg
44 l (petrol)
485 / 1,580 l (luggage)
Prices
€ 48,990 (NL)
€46,820 (B)
#Citroën #good #lure #German #sedan