Test drive Citroen C5 Aircross
A bright French crossover Citroen C5 Aircross with a rally suspension and a standard DVR goes to Russia
A seller from a roadside souvenir shop south of Marrakech, even after a long bargaining, beat an obscenely high price for a colorful piece of cloth. Like, look, what an expensive and beautiful Citroen you have, and you regret some one and a half thousand dirhams for such a fabulous palace.
I had to leave with nothing - an elegant car with European numbers clearly did not contribute to adequate negotiations. Besides, we already have a "magic carpet".
Citroen manages to create spectacular, but at the same time comfortable and practical cars that regularly fall into the list of contenders for the title of "European Car of the Year" (ECOTY). For example, in the 2015 competition, the silver medalist was the C4 Cactus model, which was second only to the unsinkable Volkswagen Passat, and in 2017, the small C3 hatchback of the new generation was among the triumphs.
Unfortunately, they never made it to Russia, but now the situation has changed. Last year we got the C3 Aircross crossover, which got into the top five of ECOTY-2018, and now we are waiting for the imminent arrival of its older brother - C5 Aircross, which took fifth place in the recent competition.
The new flagship model of the French brand is seen off. This is not surprising, because the "Cactus", with which the C5 Aircross has a clear relationship, at one time was called the car with the best design in the world. The eyes linger on the unusual split headlights and the wide radiator grille with a huge "double chevron", as if drawn by multipliers. The contrasting black pillars and chrome line of the windows visually enlarge the 4,5-meter car in size, and in total there are 30 different design options for the exterior.
But the unusual plastic "bubbles" on the lower part of the sidewalls are no longer a purely stylistic element. Airbump air capsules, which debuted five years ago on the Cactus, are designed to protect the body from damage from minor collisions and rubbing. Scratches on plastic are much less painful than on metal.
Inside, the crossover is as non-trivial as the outside: a fully digital huge tidy, a large multimedia touchscreen display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a steering wheel with beveled segments and an unusual electronic joystick-gear selector.
The cabin has five separate seats that look more like office furniture than car seats. At the same time, the chairs are actually much more comfortable than they seem at first glance. The soft, two-layer coating quickly conforms to the body, while the stiffer bottom and slightly protruding hard side segments provide a stable and confident position. In addition, the top-end driver's seat has electrical adjustments with a memory function.
The three individual seats in the rear, allowing even large passengers not to rub their shoulders against each other, can be moved and folded separately, thanks to which the boot volume varies from 570 to 1630 liters. The useful space does not end there - a two-level compartment is hidden in the boot floor, and even the largest lunchbox will envy the spaciousness of the glove box.
The Citroen C5 Aircross is based on the EMP2 modular chassis, familiar from the Peugeot 3008 and 5008, as well as the Opel Grandland X, with which the German brand returns to Russia. At the same time, the new Citroen crossover became the first "civilian" model with the innovative Progressive Hydraulic Cushions suspension, which replaced the traditional Hydroactive scheme.
Instead of the usual polyurethane dampers, the twin-tube shock absorbers additionally use a pair of hydraulic compression and rebound travel stops. They come into action when the wheels hit large holes, absorbing energy and slowing down the stem at the end of the stroke, which prevents sudden rebounds. On minor irregularities, only the main shock absorbers are used, which allowed the developers to increase the amplitude of the vertical movements of the body.
According to the French, thanks to this scheme, the crossover is able to literally hover over the road, creating the feeling of flying on a “flying carpet”. The new scheme was made possible by the participation of the Citroen factory team in the World Rally Championship - something similar the French began to use on their racing hatchbacks back in the 90s.
By the way, we didn't have to look for irregularities for a long time - they began immediately, as soon as the car turned off the highway onto the “road” towards the Moroccan High Atlas ridge. I've never had a chance to fly on a magic carpet, but the C5 Aircross walks along the mountain trail really very gently, swallowing most of the bumps. However, when driving through deep holes at high speed, shaking and dull blows are still felt, a nervous tremor appears in the steering wheel.
The steering itself is extremely light and even slightly blurry, and pressing the Sport button adds only a very dumb weight to the steering wheel. That being said, the Sport mode makes the eight-speed automatic a little fussy, although paddles come to the rescue in this case.
We managed to test cars only with top-end engines - a 1,6-liter petrol supercharged "four" and a two-liter turbodiesel. Both develop 180 liters. sec., and the torque is 250 Nm and 400 Nm, respectively. Engines allow the car to go out of nine seconds, although with a gasoline unit, the crossover gains "one hundred" almost half a second faster - 8,2 versus 8,6 seconds.
Apart from the same power output, the motors have almost identical noise levels. The diesel works as quietly as the petrol "four", so that the engine running on heavy fuel from the passenger compartment can be recognized only by the red zone of the tachometer on the electronic tidy.
The EMP2 chassis does not provide all-wheel drive - the torque is transmitted exclusively to the front wheels. So when leaving the asphalt, the driver can only rely on the Grip Control function, which changes the ABS and stabilization systems algorithms, adapting them to a certain type of surface (snow, mud or sand), as well as the function of assistance when descending a hill.
However, later, the Citroen C5 Aircross will still have an all-wheel drive PHEV modification with an electric motor on the rear axle, which will become the first serial plug-in hybrid of the French brand. However, such a crossover will be released only at the end of this year or early next year, and whether it will reach Russia is a big question.
Citroen promises an impressive array of electronic assistants with blind spot monitoring, lane-keeping, automatic emergency braking, traffic sign recognition and a rear-view camera.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the C5 Aircross is the proprietary ConnectedCAM system, which debuted three years ago on the new generation C3 hatchback. A small frontal high-resolution video camera with a 120-degree angle of coverage is installed in the car's interior mirror unit. The device can not only record short 20-second videos and take pictures for social networks, but also serve as a regular recorder. If the car gets into an accident, then a video with what happened in 30 seconds will be saved in the system memory. before the accident and one minute after.
Alas, the French have not yet announced the cost of the Citroen C5 Aircross and its configuration, but they promise to do so in the near future. In Russia, the competitors of the crossover can be called Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai and, perhaps, the more dimensional Skoda Kodiaq. They all have one, but a very significant trump card - the presence of all-wheel drive. Plus, potential competitors are produced on the territory of the Russian Federation, while the C5 Aircross will be delivered to us from a factory in Rennes-la-Jane, France.
One way or another, a new mid-size family crossover with a bright appearance, a comfortable interior like a minivan and rich equipment will soon appear in Russia. The only question is the price.
| Body type | Crossover | Crossover |
| dimensions (length / width / height), mm | 4500/1840/1670 | 4500/1840/1670 |
| Wheelbase, mm | 2730 | 2730 |
| Curb weight, kg | 1430 | 1540 |
| engine's type | Petrol, 4 in a row, turbocharged | Diesel, 4 in a row, turbocharged |
| Working volume, cubic meters cm | 1598 | 1997 |
| Power, hp with. at rpm | 181/5500 | 178/3750 |
| Max. cool. moment, Nm at rpm | 250/1650 | 400/2000 |
| Transmission, drive | 8АТ, front | 8АТ, front |
| Max. speed km / h | 219 | 211 |
| Acceleration 0-100 km / h, s | 8,2 | 8,6 |
| Fuel consumption (mixture), l | 5,8 | 4,9 |
| Price from, $. | n / a | n / a |
