French Twist

Citroen spins off its DS nameplate into its own subbrand, but its cars like the DS 5 remain as quirky and individual as ever.

- Ben Chia

Even in this day and age when we are seeing many different variations and takes on traditional car design, most of them coming under the catch-all label of ‘crossovers’, there are still some cars that remain hard to define and simply refused to be easily categorised and labelled. They often evoke confusion among regular car buyers (“what the heck is that?”), and are celebrated by hipster enthusiasts simply for their unique individualism.

The DS 5 is very clearly one of those cars that come along once in a long while, and sparks debate and discussion on what it really is and what is the reason for its existence. It’s hard to describe it to people, even car lovers, as it doesn’t seem to fit into any sort of traditional mould for cars. It’s not a wagon, or an SUV, or even what you would nominally call a crossover these days, because it doesn’t mesh body styles; it dispenses with them altogether. Perhaps the closest description one could give is ‘big hatchback’, but even then that might be doing the DS 5 injustice.