Whenever Citroën launched a car, the whole world took notice. Citroën was the most fiercely French, amazingly innovative car maker in the world. Its engineers would spend years answering questions nobody asked just so they could produce cars that were disarming, relaxing to drive and beautiful to behold.
Against the backdrop of dreary 70s’ executive cars the CX was a flash of brilliance, a dose of colour in a world that needed a car like that. Citroëns could be unreliable, difficult to drive and expensive, but the owners didn’t care because Citroën built cars that were never boring, that never felt built down to a price and that could never be mistaken for any other car. The Citroën C-Crosser is not a classic Citroën. Indeed, it is not strictly even a Citroën. It is heavily based on the Mitsubishi Outlander and it is built in Japan.
The engine is a co-development with Ford, so the C-Crosser uses the same engine as its rival, the diesel Land Rover Freelander. To top all that, Peugeot will make its own version as well. The omens are not good then, as I borrow a C-Crosser and go for a drive around rural Wicklow. The styling looks good in the flesh with the big wheel arches and the tall stance that buyers of this type of car like. Inside the French influences are less obvious; it could be any SUV in there really. Credit where it is due though. The C-Crosser is nicely finished with tactile, high quality materials. It is well laid out and quite spacious inside with plenty of room for five adults.
I found the driving position to be a too high in relation to the wheel and the seat didn’t have enough range of adjustments. Also, the steering wheel only adjusts for height too. However, overall it is an easy place to while away some time. The seats are comfortable and the tall stance gives occupants a good view of the world around them. Citroën has made the 5+2 seating arrangement standard so customers will have two extra seats in the boot. The boot itself is well laid out too, with 1,700 litres of boot space. Like most of these arrangements they are best suited to children, although the seats themselves are comfortable to sit in and the mechanism for folding them in and out is pretty straightforward. The C-Crosser gets impressive ESP with traction control as standard, along with the usual ABS and EBD. Citroën also offers selectable four-wheel-drive, which is operated by a toggle switch on the centre console.
Citroën says that it has retuned the suspension, the steering and the brakes, and it has carried out work on improving refinement. The result is a car that is not actually a bad drive. Under normal conditions it has good body control, it resists roll at low speed and the steering has decent speed and weight to it. Up the ante and the body roll does become more apparent but it isn’t alarming or uncomfortable. The steering has a reasonable amount of feel and decent speed to it, which allows the Citroën to be placed accurately in the corners.
The C Crosser understeers more than I would like, though. Turn in sharply and the nose pushes wide gradually and pretty safely but the limits of the chassis seem to have been set quite low. The ride is good too. The rear suspension has a mild tendency to thump into larger bumps but overall road imperfections are well isolated, making the CCrosser pretty comfortable. Overall refinement is good. The engine noise becomes intrusive under hard revs and there is a bit too much wind noise but overall the C-Crosser is on a par with the class. The 2.2-litre, 156hp diesel engine is a belter, though. Smooth, tractable and quite eager to rev, it can push the Citroën along at a decent lick. That engine is mated to a six-speed gearbox with well-judged ratios, but the change action itself is annoyingly notchy.
Citroën has laid on an off-road excursion for the assembled journalists to experience. It wasn’t especially challenging but it did prove that if push came to shove, the Citroën can at least go off-road. I did notice that when the going started to get tough, the Citroën had a tendency to bottom out quite a bit. It is difficult to tell if this is the car’s problem or if it was just the terrain we were driving on, as I didn’t notice such an issue when I drove the Outlander off-road last year.
INFO
Citroën C-Crosser 2.2 Hdi Exclusive
Engine: 2.2-litre 4-cylinder, 156hp, 380Nm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Acceleration: 0–100km/h: 11 seconds (est)
Top speed: 190km/h (est)
Economy: 6L/100 km CO2: 191g/km
Boot capacity: 510 litres
Weight: 1,747kg
Base Price: €46,750
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