DS7 Crossback review: high on style but short on substance
'I wanted to really love this car for a variety of reasons... but I found that near impossible,' writes Declan Colley
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DS7 CROSSBACK |
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★★★☆☆ |
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from €46,995 - €61,640 as tested |
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a decent 1.6 petrol, but the PHEV system is old-hat |
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the comfort levels are spectacular |
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the driving experience is unspectacular |
When I was a young lad, my family used to holiday in a place called Poulshone in Co, Wexford. Like most of south-Dublin, it seemed at the time, the Wexford and Wicklow coastlines were the holiday destination of choice. Thoughts of villas in Spain or other warm-climate destinations were unheard of back then, unless you had a serious amount of dosh.
So, the ‘sunny south-east’ it was for a majority of us and my mum and dad purchased a mobile home and sited it in Young’s Caravan Park in Poulshone, which was a happy destination for us and maybe about 25 other south-Dublin families seeking annual respite from the horrors of a summer in Dublin.
As a car-mad young fella – even back then – notice was taken of each and every jammer that wheeled on to our little caravan site. At the time my old man had a Mercedes 280 SE and was very proud of it, despite the fact it had ongoing problems with its Bosch fuel injectors, which was an expensive pain in the ass.
The car was something of a star turn in that locale at the time, being something relatively exotic in a world populated by Opel Rekords, Ford Cortinas, Chrysler Avengers, Vauxhall Vivas and Austin 1100s.
There were two other stand-out cars in that campsite. One was owned by Evelyn O’Neill, the wife of a successful Crumlin butcher, Mick, and it was a Lancia Fulvia, an impossibly glamorous Italian speedster of the day; and, the other was a Citroen GS owned by award-winning architect, the late Des Doyle, which was something so rare even then that it was almost bizarre.
Des was a lovely man and one who took great pleasure in the unusualness of his Citroen, which certainly stood him out from the crowd, as indeed would many of his own designs stand out from the ‘normality’ of building design prevalent in the capital in that era.
In car terms, architect territory was nearly confined to the sadly missed Swedish manufacturer Saab and its design-led products of the time. These were definitely things in which polo-necked sweater-wearing architects should be seen.
The GS, on the other hand, was a decent substitute, reflecting as it did the French love for being different – vive la difference! – both in terms of design and engineering. It was ridiculously aerodynamic in either fastback or estate forms, had kinky design touches like semi-enclosed rear wheels and a sharply vertical Kamm-tail.
It also had stuff like fully independent hydro-pneumatic brakes, self-levelling suspension and an air-cooled flat four engine. Such an adventurous design saw the car win the European Car of the Year title in 1971 and go on to sell 2.5 million units, although few here in Ireland.
All this came to mind recently when a press release landed from DS – the premium Citroen sub-brand – saying that Hugh Wallace, the architect and TV presenter had signed on as a brand ambassador for DS Automobiles. It was not long after I had driven the new DS7 and I immediately thought that the match between the brand and the new brand ambassador was fitting.
But DS has loftier aims for its customer-base than just the polo-necked architect brigade. When President Macron of France was first inaugurated back in 2017, he was driven to the official ceremonies at the Elysee Palace in a DS7 Crossback.
It was the first official appearance of the car and the whole thing was redolent of the days when his predecessor Charles de Gaulle was wheeled around in a Citroen DS which, at the time, was a paragon of French automotive design and engineering. Citroen has since parlayed the DS name into a standalone premium brand.
To date, however, and with things being greatly compromised by the Covid pandemic, DS has only launched two models, the DS3 and the DS7 Crossback, our tester this week.
Sure, the company has plenty coming down the tracks with the DS4 about to be launched here and the DS9 luxury saloon intended to be on our roads in short order.
The DS7 is a splendid-looking car and a definite stand-out from the pack. It is also hugely well-appointed inside and exquisitely passenger-oriented in comfort terms. Unfortunately as a complete package it’s a bit, well, meh.
Certainly this is a car that’ll appeal to anyone who doesn’t particularly want to drive anything premium but not German, but I must confess I expected more from this beast, especially on the drivetrain front which is not as premium as it should be.
Our tester was the Prestige E-Tense 225 model, which is close to the top of the pile in model availability and it is one of two PHEV options in the DS range and, if you’re at all familiar with what’s coming from the Stellantis/PSA stable recently, you’ll be clued-in with what’s on offer here.
If not, what’s under the skin here is a 1.6 litre four-cylinder petrol engine which is allied to a 13.2 kWh battery and an 80 kW motor. This system is mated to an eight-speed auto gearbox and only the front wheels are driven.
That last paragraph, sadly, illustrates the largest of our gripes with what is otherwise a fine car. First of all it is a PHEV – a fill-in system designed by manufacturers as a lead-in to fully EV motoring. This was only ever intended as a stop-gap ruse and was bolstered by early tax-friendliness, but that has now pretty much stopped across Europe.
In the case of the DS7, the system employed allows for claimed all-electric motoring of some 50 to 58 kms. In reality this works out at around 40 km and by our metric of the usefulness of these things, that doesn’t make it very useful at all, other than for people who actually keep it charged fully and have a very short commute.
On top of that we found that while there was some 225 bhp on hand – as illustrated in the car’s name – as well as a 0-100 km/h time of 8.9 seconds, which is brisk enough and a top speed of 226 km/h. The claimed consumption of 1.4l per 100 km (201.8 mpg) is vastly over-optimistic and realistically you are looking at a rate of around 6.7 l/100 km (41.7 mpg).
Also, depending on the driving mode you choose from – Sport, Hybrid, Comfort or eSave are the options – you can adapt what the car has to offer. In Sport, the suspension is hardened and sharpens accelerator response, but on bumpy roads the ride is nearly intolerable and it holds onto each gear too long. This all rather detracts from the image of the car as a cultured cruiser.
On the other hand, in Comfort mode, the DS7 feels flabby and underpowered, so the Hybrid setting is the favoured one. But even then, the car is not a particularly engaging drive.
You’d have thought with stuff like an adaptive damping system which scans the road ahead and bolsters the suspension for any hairy potholes, the much-anticipated magic carpet ride was there to be relished. It is sadly absent.
I wanted to really love this car for a variety of reasons, not least the rose-tinted vision of what Des Doyle’s Citroen used to represent, but I found that near impossible. Sure, I loved the unique interior and the comfort and build of the cabin, but the rest left me unimpressed.
I know there’s a lot more to come from DS and the company’s vision of sticking it to the German premium brands, but sadly this is not it.
