Citroen C5 X PHEV first drive

Not so long ago, when French autoroutes were paragons of motoring freedom and stories of biker-gendarmes marching errant motorists to cashpoints were non-existent, another glorious automotive phenomenon was common on the motorways of France.

It was the Big Citroën, a low and graceful conveyance with decisively different styling from the executive car norm. It never seemed to travel at less than three-figure speeds (in MPH) and carried its serene occupants with a supple stability that eluded everything else on the road, especially the pricier, brasher Germans.

There was a 60-year run of these big Citroëns – DS, CX, XM, C6 to name four – all with unique technology and very different driving characteristics. Sadly, it ended with the last C6, roughly 10 years ago. The cars were all dogged by the same problem: too small an export market to balance their high cost of development and manufacture. 

In Britain, especially, their rates of depreciation resembled that of a piano falling from the fifth floor. Citroën’s marketeers knew the problem but couldn’t resist forcing cars down the sales pipeline. Values collapsed. Other models and the firm’s reputation suffered. For this and other reasons, the glorious lineage ended.

Now it’s back. Make way for the Citroën C5 X PHEV, a 4.8m-long five-door saloon whose artfully designed fastback body manages to echo the svelte lines of its predecessors, while fairly claiming (because of its carefully won interior space) the combined advantages of the modern estate car and the SUV, while offering better aerodynamics and efficiency than either. The car uses an extended version of the Stellantis group’s EMP2 platform, closely related to that of the recently launched Peugeot 308.

This time, however, the company is doing big cars very differently. First, for all its special persona, the C5 X draws heavily on affordable and well-proven Stellantis componentry. 

Second, the car has been carefully configured and priced to fit a European D-segment market that, although declining, has lately been deserted by major players and thus offers rich pickings. The C5 X also carefully targets the UK’s user-chooser fleets with well-equipped models and impressively low prices (the basic petrol model starting below £28,000, the full-house plugin hybrid ending below £40,000). 

Third and most important, Citroën UK has a specific agreement from Paris that C5 X models will be built to order and not forced into the market. There will be no rental sales, a major generator of depreciation.