Emerging Classic
In its day an interesting, rather Gallic riposte to more mundane family saloons, Citroën’s Xantia is now exceedingly rare.
The highly advanced Citroën Xantia, the forgotten hero of 1990s family motoring.
Ihadn’t consciously noticed a Citroën Xantia for what seems like years, until the day the editor asked me to write this piece. After answering my emails, I had to walk into town to do some errands. As I crossed the high street, an immaculate maroon Xantia saloon glided past, pure coincidence in motion.
Since then I have seen it several times. It is rather a gem. Set against the bloated automotive population of 2023 it looks lithe, cleanlimbed and very definitely French. I admit that I failed to appreciate the Xantia much during its manufacturing life, but its virtues are manifestly more apparent 21 years after it ceased production.
When it was launched in 1992 the Xantia had a job to do. For most of the 1980s the BX had been an oddball star in the mid-sized automotive firmament. Styled at Bertone by the maestro Marcello Gandini, it expressed the origami theme that he had explored previously in concepts for Reliant, Volvo and Lamborghini. The BX was very light thanks to extensive use of plastic panels. It rode imperturbably on hydropneumatic, selflevelling suspension and garnered a following in the UK among mavericks blind to the quotidian appeal of family transport made by Ford, Rover and Vauxhall.
By the end of the decade the mid-size sector had come to include both smaller and larger cars, and Citroën decided to create specific models for both ends of the spectrum. Its more compact offering arrived in 1991. Where the BX had visual and technical flair, the ZX combined odd, frumpy looks with very conventional mechanicals to produce a remarkably underwhelming ownership experience. I owned one briefly in 2005 as a costsaving exercise to facilitate a house purchase. It was worthy but dull, and I wasn’t remotely perturbed when it expired halfway across a swollen river in Cornwall.
The Xantia – which Citroën hoped to pitch directly against Ford’s Mondeo and other highly-capable mid-sized offerings – had to push the boat out, and to quite some degree it delivered. Which is why, two decades on, I am writing about it. Unlike its smaller stablemate the ZX – and despite them both being penned by legendary Turin design house Bertone – it is a genuinely good-looking car. It crouches low and has a purposeful air rare in its class. Drawn in geometric lines, its profile is softer-edged than the very 1980s BX. The Xantia basically made many of its rivals look rather ordinary. You couldn’t imagine a French politician being conveyed discretely to the Palais de l’Elysée in a Mondeo or a Rover 400, but the Xantia played the part of a scaled-down limousine with aplomb.
It seems to be one of the natural laws of car styling that the estate version of a model is better-looking than the saloon. With the insouciant iconoclasm that only a French car can command, the Xantia turned this rule on its head. There was a precedent for this. My ZX estate looked like a wine-red saloon car that someone had
inexpertly welded a shed to. The estate Xantia – which appeared in 1995 – was vastly better-looking than that, but it had a heft to its profile that the saloon avoided. I should clarify at this point that ‘saloon’ is probably the wrong term to use. I have done so thus far because the sector it was operating in tended to offer a four-door saloon alongside a five-door estate. But – deploying that insouciant iconoclasm again – Citroën brought a notchback hatch to the party. The result, of course, is a highly practical car, whatever version you chose. The hatchback had a perfectly acceptable – and incredibly accessible – boot. The estate was gargantuan.
There was nothing iconoclastic about the engines on offer in the Xantia. Throughout its life Citroën revised its thoroughly dependable motors. Those included four-cylinder petrol units of 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0-litre capacities, the latter two also appearing in 16-valve form. These were capable and reliable, if not particularly spectacular. The 2.0-litre gave 135bhp in normally-aspirated form, and 150bhp with a turbocharger. The 1.9 and 2.0-litre diesel engines were excellent, however. They were strong and frugal, and the later HDi version was pretty refined for its era. The star of the show was a delightful 3.0-litre V6 petrol motor, which provided 194bhp. It was notably refined in operation, especially as it was only available with an automatic gearbox. The V6 Xantia had a plutocratic air far beyond its station.
While its engines were relatively unadventurous, the Xantia sported a chassis that was revolutionary in its class. Of course, hydropneumatic suspension had been a Citroën speciality since the legendary DS appeared in 1955. Sensibly, the company decided to bestow it on the Xantia, giving it an ethereal, floating ride unique among its peers. In 1994, it took the idea further, creating a flagship Xantia called Activa. This combined the magic carpet of a hydropneumatic system with the Formula One technology of active suspension. It was the first such system ever used on a road car, and it was devastatingly effective. Essentially, Activa added hydraulically-controlled anti-roll bars to the system. The result was both Arabian Nights ride and completely roll-free cornering. A Xantia Activa could pull 1.2 g in corners, which required the seats to have reinforced side supports. Unsurprisingly, it smashed Swedish magazine Teknikens Värld’s legendary Moose Test at 53mph in 1999, and holds the record to this day.
Top Gun-spec seats aside, the Xantia’s cabin is a weirdly ordinary affair. This is a shame, because its forebears the DS and CX boasted interiors that would make the crew of the USS Enterprise feel at home. I guess it might have proved difficult to fit an airbag in a single-spoke steering wheel, but having stalks instead of rocker switches on wacky dashboard proboscises, conventional dials and a dreary, deeply quotidian dash formed in cheap-looking black plastic seems a terrible betrayal of the car’s good looks and revolutionary chassis. It does have pleasantly French squashy seats though, which I confess I have a distinct fondness for.
The boring interior didn’t deter British buyers. The Xantia was no real competition for the Mondeo or the 3-Series BMW, but it posted strong sales here. However, Francophilia comes at a price, which can be measured in the shocking depreciation that dogs Gallic automobiles. Two decades after its début, low values, high maintenance costs – especially for the relatively complex Activa models – and scrappage schemes rendered the Xantia a rare sight on these shores.
Despite all this, there is a hard core of enthusiasts that care passionately for this slightly out-there French creation. Surviving examples can be cherished and well cared for. Values are still low, but a V6 Activa with plenty of paperwork can command a premium. The Xantia is an interesting, practical and surprisingly reliable machine. It is perfectly useable every day, with potential for cult or classic status in years to come.
It is generally thought that with old cars one has to take the rough with the smooth. The Citroën Xantia thumbs its nose at such conventions, offering transport with both grace and panache.