Citroën's conventional SUV celebrates la différence

Citroën insists it has its mojo back: that its hallmark trait – comfort – has returned in abundance.

Of course, it’s the French maker that has nominated comfort as its hallmark trait. To many, the company’s strongest, longest-standing attribute is weirdness. No more it seems, or not in any great amount. The oddities in the new C5 Aircross have been restricted to a few splashes of bright paint and quirky detailing. It’s in most ways a conventional SUV, albeit one with great practicality and a focus on, yes, comfort.

To achieve sumptuousness in the past, Citroëns “floated” on hydropneumatic suspension. With this unique feature they were the best riding cars in the world up until maybe the late 1980s. By then, newer technology was achieving better results. Citroën stuck with it until just a few years ago, because many expected it. A Citroën with conventional springing wasn’t quite strange enough.

The company has since announced a replacement, known as progressive hydraulic cushions suspension, for which it claims as many as 20 patents. This is a coil spring system with additional hydraulic stops for rebound and compression inside the dampers. It is like having suspension at each end of your suspension, further arresting and dissipating the spikes of energy that come when the springs are sprung.

The C5 Aircross is the mechanical twin to the Peugeot 3008, though pretty well everything you can see is different.

Even when you are not testing it on speed bumps, the greater “give” in the system suppresses jittery vibrations in normal driving. Not afraid of a cliché, Citroën says it delivers a “flying carpet effect”. And does it? It’s pretty effective and all done with no electronics, and very little extra weight. Indeed progressive hydraulic cushions achieves as good a ride quality as complicated electronically controlled systems on some much dearer cars.

What it can’t do as well as those, however, is adapt to conditions (such as automatically stiffening up in hard cornering). The tallish Citroën has slightly more body roll than its conventionally sprung rivals. Does that matter to the average city driver? Probably not. It never feels unsafe. You also quickly become used to the ultra-light steering.

The C5 Aircross is the mechanical twin to the Peugeot 3008, though pretty well everything you can see is different. There are two C5 Aircrosses, the well-equipped Feel and the slightly better equipped Shine, which is $4000 dearer.

Both have plenty of standard inclusions (foot-operated powered tailgate, various driver aids, digital instruments and touch screen that can be tailored to tastes).