Through the DS looking glass
Choosing a DS is a uniquely modern experience.
I’d approached the day wearing a sandwich board proclaiming ‘We’re All Doomed (But Particularly DS)’ yet ended it like John Belushi somersaulting down the church aisle in The Blues Brothers.
I’d half-expected that at some point during my four hours immersed in the DS Automobiles universe, the DS personnel would stop mid-sentence, slap their foreheads and proclaim: ‘Oh my days! You’re right. You’re so, so right. This is clearly a ludicrous idea and it will never work.’
But no. Because they’re convinced it will work. It is working. And their belief is infectious, their arguments convincing.
The challenge is making a success of a new car maker, DS Automobiles, a standalone brand within the PSA family since 2015, having previously been a Citroën sub-brand. They haven’t made it easy for themselves. They’ve cut the range down to three cars at the moment – the DS 7 Crossback, launched last year, the DS 3 Crossback, which joined it this year, and the departing DS 3. The range is being purged of everything that has a Citroën twin, and will slowly work its way up to being six strong, with electric and hybrid variants, and soon a non-SUV.
And what used to be a massive dealership network, with a DS section in a larger Citroën showroom, has been pared back to a tiny (but growing) number of DS Salons and DS Stores.
Brave! Visionary! Pioneering! Or reckless, unrealistic, impractical. Alain Descat, managing director of DS in the UK, pulls no punches: ‘In the first half of 2018, UK sales were around 4000 cars. In the second half [when the range and the network had both undergone a drastic pruning], UK sales 1000. We had to take the pain, but it’s worth it.’
DS is acting like a start-up and selling cars in a new way. Descat’s point is that cars are being bought and sold (and leased and hired) in a new way anyway, so better to be on the front foot, creating a range that’s suited to the times and a dealer network suited to the range.
Descat is talking me through the thinking while we munch sandwiches in a meeting room above the DS Store Birmingham North. DS Stores are the bigger, fancier showrooms; DS Salons are smaller. ‘Globally, at the end of 2017 we had 229 Stores and Salons. By the end of 2021 that should be 750,’ he says. ‘It was 18 in February last year and there are 35 in the UK today. We’re not covering the full country. But we’ll soon be up to 60.’
Earlier, I’d visited the DS Salon in Stafford. It’s unlike other car dealerships, but relatively normal compared to a Store. Paul Irving, ‘DS Expert Advisor’ (they don’t call themselves salesmen) at Stafford, explains that in this online age customers are now generally very well informed before they visit or contact the dealer, and often know exactly what they want. His job is not to charm or persuade, but to make it easy for them to have an extended test drive, to get answers to their questions, to talk about the many perks of DS ownership.
Some customers are long-time ⊲
French-car buyers, some are DS fans who’ve gone 3, 4, 5 and now 7 – ‘and some the other way too, from larger to smaller: a premium feel in a size that suits them better’.
The Salon where I meet Paul and general manager Craig Norton is smart, modern and very different from neighbouring old-school dealerships. But an hour down the M6, at the DS Store Birmingham North, is where the DS experience can be seen in full bloom. The extra space is used to provide an even more relaxed, feng shui kind of environment, not to cram in more cars. There are 7s and 3s, of course, but also artfully textured walls, modernist furniture and glass coffee tables of a kind you get in fancy hotel lobbies. The soundtrack and the perfume in the air are not left to chance.
Anathema, you might think, to someone with a solid grounding in the old way of selling cars. But no. Richard Garbutt, sales director of Robins and Day, the dealer group that controls Birmingham North, says: ‘There’s an excitement running through the network. It’s a real transition in the industry. I’ve been with the group for 25 years. It’s the best it’s ever been.’ The Birmingham Store has a virtual-reality configurator. There’s no way any dealership would be big enough to house every option of paint, wheel and upholstery, and with VR there’s no need. You get to look around the inside and outside in brilliant detail, changing any detail you like. And there’s a salesm… sorry, DS Expert Advisor by your side to suggest fresh combinations.
One of the many things that had been confusing me about DS was the fact that the manufacturer was Formula E world champion, but not making a huge fuss about it. Certainly my petrol-fuelled four-cylinder DS 7 Crossback is, beneath all its glitz, a pretty conventional car, with zero connection to Formula E. But that, I’m assured, is all about to change. As the range expands, hybrids and electric DSs will become the norm.
When electrified DSs are on the road, Formula E will become much more prominent in DS’s marketing. Descat notes: ‘Customers are not very loyal when they go electric. As the new kid on the block, that’s an opportunity.
‘Winning Formula E is perfect timing. You need proof. DS has built the best car in Formula E, with the best algorithms. We learn a lot from Formula E.’
The perfectly decent petrol engine does not define my DS 7, and I suspect the imminent hybrid version will similarly be all about the styling, the ambience and the interior, not about the powertrain. Heading home down the M6 and M1, I’m newly enthused by the idea of DS. What had seemed like a ludicrous self-imposed burden – hardly any cars! hardly any dealers! – now looks like a smart bit of getting in ahead of the herd with new ways of engaging with customers and new ways of making cars enjoyable.
That said, much of what’s impressed me about the 7 has been nothing to do with customer engagement and everything to do with older virtues: it’s a car that’s comfortable, roomy, calming, safe and well built, and rare enough to always be a talking point.
The extra space is used to provide a more feng shui kind of environment, not to cram in more cars
Count the cost
Cost new £35,915 Part exchange £28,160 Energy cost 20.0p per
mile Cost per mile including depreciation £1.72