DS 7 Crossback

You’d imagine after a breakdown, a crash and a lame excuse from Citroën that I’d write the DS 7 Crossback off. But there’s more.

DS 7 Crossback. Picture: supplied

Citroën’s new DS 7 was on its way over to my flat for a test drive when a youth in a Subaru Impreza with an exhaust the size of a supergun decided to crash into it. The Impreza was badly damaged but the DS escaped with minor cuts and bruises. This surprised me. What didn’t surprise me, a few days later, was that the engine died. Being French, it had decided to go on strike. Citroën’s press office didn’t seem too concerned, so I said I’d leave it to be towed away and would go home in a cab.

But then a bloke from roadside assistance turned up, saying he would plug the car into his diagnostic laptop to see what was wrong. “Ha-ha-ha-ha,” I said. But in just a minute the Citroën came back to life, and that was another surprise because, in my experience, trying to mend a car with a laptop is like trying to do dentistry in boxing gloves.

Later, Citroën called in a bit of a panic to say that there had been nothing wrong with the car, and that a faulty battery was to blame. I don’t buy that, I’m afraid, because the battery is as much a part of the car as its doors, or its steering wheel. Saying the car was fine apart from a battery that wouldn’t hold its charge is like saying the patient is fine apart from the fact his heart exploded.

Whatever. You’d imagine after a breakdown and a car crash I’d write the Citroën off and move on to something else. But there’s more. Hilariously, Citroën is trying to pass the DS off as a standalone brand. Even though the only people who can remember the original DS are wearing incontipanties in nursing homes. And anyway, the whole point of that car was the clever suspension that allowed you to drive with one wheel missing over a ploughed field at 160km/h without spilling your cognac. Whereas the new DS judders over the smallest speed hump as if its ankle just broke.

There’s more bad news. The basic cost of the car I tested, a Crossback Prestige, was £39,380 ($72,500). But it had been fitted with a night vision pack, electric sunroof, big wheels and a few other options, so the actual cost was an eye-watering £44,855. Small wonder Citroën is saying it’s not a Citroën.

What it definitely is, is an SUV — and as I’ve said before I can’t be doing with the damn things. They’re the motoring equivalent of the short-sleeved shirt. They’re patio furniture with brake lights. So there’s much not to like here, and yet …

Step inside and you will find the doors and the dashboard are coated in quilted leather, such as you would find in a Bentley or an Aston Martin. And the clock is like a footballer’s watch. It doesn’t tell the time very well — 20 past nine comes up as four past 45 — but it’s a thing of ostentatious beauty. I would like such a thing in my life.

Then there are the buttons. Citroën has gone for a Porsche approach by blunderbussing the transmission tunnel with big switches, and the instrument binnacle is just as stylistically out there. It’s very like being in a Lamborghini. If you are in the market for an SUV — and who isn’t these days? — you’d struggle to sit in a DS and decide to buy something else. I liked it enormously.

The handling, fuel economy and performance? They’re what you’d expect from an SUV, a type of car wilfully designed to be no good at any of those things. It has a 2-litre turbodiesel engine; strut suspension at the front, multi-arm at the rear; electric power steering. It’s the same recipe every bugger is using.

But on a motorway I was surprised — again — by just how quiet and unruffled it was even at what I’d say to police was 110km/h. I was impressed with the Apache gunship-style night vision system, too. When the infrared cameras spot something organic ahead, it’s ringed on the spooky black-and-white picture feed in a yellow box.

And that’s what I saw as I drove down a rural main road late one Saturday night. A yellow box, ringing nothing that could be made out, in a wood. Being a cautious soul, I slowed down, and moments later a deer leapt out in front of me … It’s likely that if the car hadn’t had night vision, I’d now be wearing Bambi as a big, maggoty hat.

So there is much to like about this car. But it is very expensive and it was fitted with a battery that couldn’t hold its charge. So I’m afraid that overall it has to be a no.

Fast facts: DS 7 Crossback

Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel (132kW/400Nm); average fuel 4.9 litres per 100km

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, front-wheel drive

Price: £39,380 (N/A Australia)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars