#HorsePower – DS 9

The DS 9 is the third model from Citroen’s deluxe offshoot brand, but unlike the DS 7 Crossback or the DS 3 Crossback, it’s the first designer-label French car for ages to shun the jacked-up crossover craze. Look, it’s a perfectly conventional four-door saloon car. Remember those?

Sizewise, the DS 9 is a nailed-on rival for the dominant BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Mercedes E-Class… but even DS doesn’t think it’ll be squaring up to those guys in a straight fight. 

The game plan is to nick a few hundred sales from the Jaguar XF and Lexus ES, and provide a French-flavoured alternative for anyone who’s on their sixteenth Merc and fancies a change.

Three powertrains are on offer, and diesel is nowhere to be seen. How the times have changed, eh? Choose instead between a 1.6-litre petrol four-cylinder good for a heady 222bhp, or a plug-in hybrid that teams a lesser petrol engine with an e-motor. It also adds up to 222bhp, but with a useful 34 miles of claimed all-electric range. Topping the range is the 355bhp plug-in 4×4 set-up found under Peugeot’s 508 PSE.

While the DS 9 shares its under-the-skin foundations with Peugeot’s impossibly handsome 508 – which is also available with a fleet of hybrid drivetrains – the not-a-Citroen is longer and somehow more subtle.

The droopy front LED motif and big Audi-esque grille give it some snarling road presence in your prey’s rear-view mirror, but despite lashings of chrome and intricate lights, the 9 isn’t immediately gorgeous. It’s not an ugly car, but it seems to be trying quite hard to be inoffensive. And surely a DS should be wantonly mad and obviously stunning? Seems odd that Peugeot’s cheaper saloon is the palpably more seductive machine.

DS hits back on the inside, with a lush cabin that’s familiar from the DS 7 Crossback, but somehow feels more upmarket when not jammed into a jumped-up hatchback.

Front and centre, a 12-inch touchscreen. Behind the (regular-sized) steering wheel, 12.3 inches of fully digital instruments. The metal window switches live on the centre console, while the well-trimmed leathers and fillets of flashes of metal ramp up the perceived quality.

Sales targets are modest: DS wants to sell a few hundred in the UK, while a future as a French state car surely awaits across the Channel. Can it set a president for the return of big French cars? No? Merde.