What is it?
Several things to consider here: DS as a premium brand, the B-segment SUV as a thing, and the new DS 3 Crossback as the incumbent iteration of both. We might get more questions than answers, but we’ll worry about that later.
And so to the DS 3. I mean the new Crossback, not the old DS 3, the rather charming 3dr hatchback that in its warmer forms is rather good fun, and which plods along on sale for a short while longer. The DS 3 made the crossover (sorry) from being a Citroën to being badged as a DS, but the supermini won’t represent the brand for long, because DS is all about premium.
PSA group, DS’s owner, knows: premium brands account for 11% of all worldwide car sales, it says, but 37% of profits. PSA – Peugeot, Citroen, Vauxhall/Opel, all distinctly not-premium in their various ways – would like a part of that action. And it’s not afraid to say it. It’s perhaps unusual for a company to declare it wants to sell into “70% of the premium profit pool in the world”. I mean, we know it’s all about the money, but you don’t have to remind us.
Anyway, the old DS 3 doesn’t fit very neatly into this profit pool (conventional small cars don’t) but as a small premium SUV thing, the new DS 3 Crossback very much does. The DS 3 Crossback is 4.17m long, 1.79m wide and 1.53m high, and weighs 1280kg, which means it competes with the Audi Q2 and Mini Countryman.
It also means that it’s just 8cm longer and 6cm higher than a Ford Fiesta, yet because it’s a premium SUV the adverts look the same as the ones for perfume and it can cost as much as £35,000, even though it’s only got a 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine. Look, don’t ask me, I don’t make this stuff up.
Anyway, prices start at £21,550 for the 99bhp petrol you won’t buy because every month it’ll cost no less than the 129bhp petrol automatic we’ve tested, which starts at £24,550 (though you can add a couple of grand for the model in the pictures, which has some options on it).
The Crossback sits on PSA group’s new CMP platform, which I believe it’s obligatory to mention will also underpin the new Peugeot 208 and Vauxhall Corsa. The neat thing about CMP is that it’s primed for use with both internal combustion engines, of which the DS 3 has four options in the UK - 99bhp, 129bhp and 153bhp 1.2 petrols and a 99bhp 1.5 diesel – and as a pure battery electric vehicle, which will arrive at the end of this year.
To my ears that suggests there’s inevitably some compromise in the platform, because with an EV, surely it’s nice to be inventive with where you put the mechanicals to maximise interior space.
But PSA’s logic is that, because both ICE cars and EVs roll down the same production line, it can be flexible about the proportions of each it builds, as the market demands. It’s a rather more pragmatic approach than nailing everything on a new EV platform, and not entirely un-sensible. Powertrain is a choice, then, not a philosophy.
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I really want to like it
I like anything different and new. I do quite like the way this looks though the diamond patterns on the interior look a bit Amstrad. My problem with this is that it's all surface style and no depth of engineering or fundamentally clever thinking. It's like a flash kitchen with chipboard inner frames. What made the 1955 DS so amazing was how they rethought the idea of what a car was from the ground up and the inside out. Too many cars now wrap fancy styling around a standard platform and the packaging suffers. What's the point of a car when it doesn't properly accommodate 4/5 tall people and their luggage as a basic minimum. Why wouldn't you start with that requirement?
androo wrote:
First of all, many cars - through all segments - will not be able to accomodate 4/5 TALL people. If that would be the case, the streets would be filled with Berlingo's. Ever seen 5 TALL folks in an Up!, CLS, Yaris, Bimmer 3, Astra??
Secondly, what has 60 year old DS which brought Citroen at the brink of extinction to do with this Different Spirit 3 Crossback? Nothing.
Thirdly, these days, all cars are well engineered. The differentiator is in the packaging.
I don't get why people are
I don't get why people are going on about it being small in the back etc. This is a replacement for the 3-door DS3, it's already bigger than that. There are lots of single/couples whom will buy this. Not every car has to be designed to take a family.
Personally, I have an issue with the lack of more powerful engines. 99bhp entry level doesn't seem very premium to me.
Like a 90s Nokia fashion phone
What a tart's handbag of a car. Nostalgia can be tiresome but i miss the truly idiosyncratic cars they used to make, my CX Prestige, the XM my dad had. My first car bought with my own hard earned money was an AX 1.1 RE 4 speed for £1,500 - i loved it. So much character and fun to drive. No Citroen or Fiat i have had has ever let me down, despite their reputations.