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| Road Test Citroen C5 2.2 HDi Exclusive |
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French, From France
Actually, I smiled when I passed a billboard which had a picture of the C5 along with the words "tres Bonn". Thought that was quite clever. Other than that, I think the whole thing is wrong, because it conveys a lack of confidence on the part of the manufacturer about its latest car. And if there is one car in the recent history of Citroen which should be making the company puff up its chest and say, "Look at us! Aren't we clever?" it's the C5. This is, for a start, surely the most elegant Citroen there has ever been this side of the 1950s DS. That factor alone puts it well ahead of the previous C5, but there are many other advances in addition to that. From the time the new car was first announced last year, Citroen has emphasised the attention it has paid to noise reduction, and this has turned out to be perhaps the major triumph. The test car had the 173bhp 2.2-litre HDi turbo diesel engine (there are 1.6, 2.0 and 2.7 V6 alternatives, as well as 1.8- and two-litre petrol units), and a very fine piece of work it is too, capable of pushing this large car from 0-62mph in 10.0 seconds and on to a maximum of 136mph, figures which are beaten in the range only by the 2.7 V6. The more impressive point, though, is that in every situation - from a cold start to flat-out acceleration - its dieselness is almost imperceptible; rarely is anything more than a distant hum allowed to seep from the engine bay to the passenger compartment.
Another thing in the C5's favour is that it is very comfortable indeed - certainly in the test car's range-topping Exclusive trim. The Exclusive has only a few extra pieces of equipment to distinguish it from the VTR+, which is £1500 cheaper, and among the most important of these are the multi-adjustable front seats.
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