… DS 7 Crossback …
Grrrr! Motor manufacturers and their advertising agencies. I had to go back through this article when it was finished and delete all mentions of Citroen before publishing. I still haven’t got used to the fact that DS has diverged itself from the parent company to become a standalone brand.
I don’t know why they’ve done it. Citroen always had a reputation for design flair and quirky looks, and they still have, but as I see it, so does DS, so now we’ve got two brands which do flair and quirky.
I suppose that’s unkind, but if Citroen is going for mass appeal and DS is going upmarket I suppose I can understand the need to separate them out. It was therefore on that basis that I approached the new DS7 Crossback with more than a little interest.
It’s quite a grand looking machine from all angles. From the DS script badge on the grille to the complex looking light mouldings at the rear. Inside the car, it stops just short of being plush, offering a quite luxurious and stylish interior.
This is what will sell the DS brand from now on, the attention to detail and the design flourishes that lift a car out of the ordinary and into the special. I’ll tell you what, the Crossback is going to give the makers of other luxury SUVs a fight for the punter’s money. All that the DS marketing have to do is make the DS badge as aspirational as the horse and antlers, the three pointed star, the propeller or the leaping cat and job done. In fact that will be the biggest job, because on merit, the Crossback is more than a match for any of them.
Already I’m a fan. The leather and suede seats are supremely comfortable, the driving position ideal and the interior has all the creature comforts and space that a driver and three or four passengers could want.
The large central high mounted touchscreen display dominates the dashboard and opens up the menu to a whole plethora of options. Enough to keep a 7 year amused while Mom goes shopping and coffee-ing with friends.
Switchgear is minimal, but that said, there is a row of discreet buttons along the bottom edge of the screen which offer instant access to the more immediate needs like heating and aircon, music and SatNav and of course the driver’s linked phone. On the panel beside the auto-shift lever there are two more buttons, one to select ‘Drive Mode’ and the other is the infernal (I still don’t like them!) electronic parking brake.
The Aisin developed 8 speed automatic ‘box is one of the better auto shifters on the market but even if you do want to get more involved as a driver, there is a manual mode with paddles behind the steering wheel. That allows you to have a bit more fun with the 178 bhp turbo diesel. That’s not a lot of power for such a big car (1.5 tonnes) but it’s enough to be involving and make life interesting.
A wide stance and low centre of gravity adds to the car’s road manners. The MacPherson strut front end with multi-link rear end is controlled by a variable, multi-mode electronic damping system which is fed by data from by a number of sensors (acceleration, speed, steering wheel angle) and a windscreen-mounted camera which scans the road surface up to 20 metres ahead. The result is an effortless, road thump-less, cosseting system which works very well on all surfaces offering up grip and comfort in equal measure. I really did like it.
The advanced electronics don’t stop at suspension management. The car also has dynamic LED headlights as part of the DS Active LED Vision system. As someone who is often dazzled and blinded by oncoming traffic in darkest Scotland, I’m no fan of so-called ‘intelligent’ lighting systems but I didn’t have long enough with the Crossback to try this out. For sure they’re bright at night, but they also provide five fully automated modes: Parking, Town Beam, Country Beam, Motorway Beam and Adverse Weather. Not enough? There are also Dynamic Bending Light and High Beam functions!
Added to that and concealed within the grille, is an infra-red camera which is able to detect pedestrians or animals up to 100 metres ahead. It produces a dashboard alert – yellow, then red – that gives the driver time to react according to the potential hazard’s position. We’ve all heard of the Swedish ‘elk test’ but here in Scotland we have our own very similar ‘red deer test’. Some of these rascals can be quite big at times too.
The car also offers a step towards autonomous driving, regulating road speed according to traffic and acts on the steering to maintain lane positioning. Ideal for traffic jams and on motorways. And for those who think the Crossback is a bit big, it has a fully automated self-parking mode.
In fact, there is an awfy lot more going under this shiny exterior.
And the price for all this style and luxury? The range starts from just over £23,000 and goes up to £36,000, which compared to its rivals and what it offers actually sounds like a pretty good deal. The test car was priced at £38,230 but it had £1750 worth of extras including metallic paint, the aforementioned DS Night Vision pack, Park Pilot and 360 Vision, and if the standard excellent sound system is not up to your critical appreciative aural standards then an extra FOCAL Electra HiFi system with 14 speakers should do the job for an extra £990. In fact I’d like to try that too.
This is a handsome, large-ish car that doesn’t look bloated, offering up oodles of space and comfort for those wishing to travel in contented silence. I really did like it. In fact there was one thing I didn’t like – I only had the car for a week. Not long enough to full appreciate its merits.