'Revolution' is an interesting word.
at once associated with folk heroes from Trotsky to Che, while simultaneously over-used by ad agencies desperate to add fizz to public image, revolutions have variously been understood as irrestible forces for cultural change, and the polar opposite of cautious, deliberate, evolution.
such a diversity of applications of the word seems to befit the concept itself, for - you see - 'revolution' can be argued to also be a distinctly French invention.
deep within the French cultural psyche is the need to invoke progress through (often) violent perturbations of the status quo. pre-dating its Russian counterpart by at least a hundred years, the French Revolution birthed radical social and political upheaval across Europe (and beyond). from Robespierre to Napoleon, from the rise of feminism to the influence on Mao, no one knows better how to structure for radical change better than the French, once they put their mind to it.
… and so we come to the Citroën DS5, a car the tagline of which in Europe is changez d'époque.
it's difficult to imagine another automobile so saddled with the burden of socio-cultural expectation as the DS5.
here is a car which bears a name that has had such a bearing on modern French culture that movies have been made of it, philosophers have pundited over it, and presidents have refused to be ferried in anything but it.
and yet the DS5 bears little or no relation - at least at first, and second, and possibly third examination - to its revered original (while coming closest in the modern Ligne DS to its proportions).
could a greater sacrilege be conceived?
these thoughts were on my mind as i drove a DS5 today, for the second time in as many weeks. my first experience behind the wheel was - alas - somewhat marred by the foggy mask of the surreal, much like meeting one's hero (in my case, it would be Thierry Neuville) for the first time.
so today i determined to approach the experience more deliberately, and to treat the car as a car (albeit an automobile which i am certainly going to own one day).
how does the steering weight up? how does it track on expressways? how does the balance influence handling on the twisty bits? how is the gearbox matched with the engine?
imperceptibly. steadfastly. and with a very high degree of linearity and composure.
you see, when one is in a DS5, one rightly expects to take these as given. what i was continually aware of - instead - was the strange paradox of riding high, riding wide, and - for want of a better phrase - riding 'shallow'.
one does notice the mildly elevated ride height; this being a Citroën, it's not as straightforward as that because one is simultaneously aware of the car's width. the brain thus communicates to self: SUV, but that notion is quickly put paid to by the way the interior architecture just seems to drape and slink away, in its inimitably organic fashion. the closest analogy i can think of is riding cocooned in one of those crazy open-air sand buggies of the 1970s, with their cross-braced frames and wide stance.
it's impossible to talk about the DS5 and not mention the glasshouse. not since the XM has a Citroën been endowed with such crazy glazing. but the truth of the matter is it does work, and work well.
it works well because one's mind soon doesn't 'see' the double-A-pillars in the forward field-of-vision, and those extra front quarter-lights which look so featurelessly flat from the outside really do afford curvature for sufficient visibility when taking a sharp corner. the complexity of the glasshouse overhead mirrors the organic musculature and ribbing of the interior, and only serves to reinforce the impression that one is riding in something rather special, as in - to lapse into cliché - a concept car (in this case, the C-SportLounge) has escaped the show floor and somehow made it to production. and that titchy rear screen which looks so ridiculous from the outside? well, because it's almost totally upright, despite its size it offers an unimpeded view out, much like a more conventionally styled car would.
when i returned the car to the garage dealership, there was a C6 parked outside.
it looked - as C6s always do - resolutely serene.
as i drove past, DS5 and C6 were side-by-side, inches from each other.
did i - for a moment - feel a tinge of regret, of what might have been?
truthfully, i cannot say. the interior architecture, the glasshouse, the sense of sheer occasion when behind the wheel of a DS5 - i was more mindful of those.
the king is dead.
long live the king.
