The ultimate in family transport – no kidding If it had a name it’d be Comfy McComfortface
The roomy Honda was always a fine workhorse, but now it’s really shining as do-everything transport for a growing family. By Alex Tapley But is plushness enough? By Phil McNamara
There’s an urban myth in the world of road testers that says if you/your partner were to give birth in a test car, you’d get to keep it. Now that could be pretty traumatic experience to go through – but a free car? It can’t be that traumatic, can it? Although first I’d have to check my eligibility, as a photographer rather than road tester. And of course that assumes there’s any truth in it, rather than wishful thinking.
In the final weeks leading up to the arrival of our second child, I would regularly find myself imagining what the perfect car for such a scenario might be. A car that in other circumstances might top my wish list – a Porsche Cayman GT4, for instance – would make a catastrophic mobile maternity unit.
When your priorities are not so much dynamic excellence as comfort, luggage space and ease of cleaning the interior, SUVs become infinitely more appealing.
On a recent family outing I posed the question to Mrs T. Once she’d got over her initial horror at the mere suggestion of giving birth in a car, she assured me she’d be very happy to keep the CR-V. It’s rare that she takes any interest in the cars I bring home, but she’s taken a liking to the Honda, with the result that I’ve often had to use her Mini Countryman (no hardship, except when I need more space) as she’s nabbed the keys to the CR-V. When the day finally came and the contractions got to a point where it was clear we needed to get to the hospital, we upped and made a move downstairs to the car. And then all hell broke loose. We needed to be at hospital now. NOW!
With a 15-minute journey down bumpy B-roads – which may well have hastened things along a little – we made it to the hospital, and 20 minutes later our new baby was born.
And now, with mother and newcomer back home, the CR-V is making a good case for itself as a serious contender for the title of ultimate family car. It has oodles of second-row space for our four-year-old and the newborn, while still leaving plenty of room for our dog and all the paraphernalia that comes with small children, babies and dogs. Even with the front seats adjusted for tall adults such as myself, row two is vast.
There are plenty of airbags and two Isofix points. We’ve got a combination of the Graco SlimFit for our four-year-old, chosen for its side impact protection, while the newborn has a Primo Viaggio i-Size, picked for its incredible safety ratings. We’re looking forward to plenty of safe and happy travels.
You’ll notice that my initial reservations about the combination of hybrid engine and CVT haven’t loomed large in this report. That’s no oversight; the slight lack of pin-sharp dynamic excellence built into the powertain really doesn’t seem at all important when the car has so much else to offer.
Three months in, and the Citroën-McNamara family courtship is getting serious. The attraction extends beyond this comfort-biased crossover’s easy-going nature. Its practicality is a real help around the house. The family spent two weekends laying a new lawn, which entailed loading the Aircross with turf ’til the springs sagged and it became a Groundcross, then hauling waste to the tip.
The two-level boot floor isn’t quite the gimmick I initially thought, adding 9cm of depth to help cram in my three girls’ suitcases, toys and scooters under the cover for a weekend away. Basically this biggest-in-class boot is more cavernous than a spelunker convention, even with the sliding rear bench in its rearmost position to allow sucient room for adult legs behind my low-flying, thrust-back driver’s seat.
However, only the two outer seats have Isofix brackets on which to clamp child seats, and there’s no tethering hook on the rear of the middle seat. The Peugeot 5008, by contrast, anchors three child seats across the back.
To drive, the Aircross doesn’t get the heart racing. The variable-rate steering is great at manoeuvring speeds, superlight and greyhound fast from lock to lock. But once you’re rolling around town, it becomes as unpredictable as
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. The rack typically feels light and a bit vague, occasionally with inconsistent weighting as you swing eagerly through corners. Reassuring heft arrives at faster speeds, though weirdly it then gets all sensitive and needs frequent correction.
Steering precision isn’t helped by the soft suspension set-up. Bumps on corner entry can get the body pitching, before the C5 rolls into a jaunty lean through the bend. This masks the plentiful underlying grip, but there’s a nagging sense that the Aircross is at the border on its way out of its comfort zone.
All told the C5 Aircross is more dependable than racy. And given this is a family car, there’s plenty to be said for that.