DS 3 Performance
evo contributor Brett Fraser tries our DS 3 for a night – and returns it less than completely convinced
MYTH – URBAN AND OTHERWISE – has it that the Citroën DS of the 1950s was thus named because it had the body of a goddess, or déesse as they say en français. I don’t see much of any deity in the DS 3, chicly smart though it may be in the modern idiom, and therefore no reason to consider it as anything other than a Citroën hot hatch. The idea that DS is a separate brand seems nonsense.
They are perhaps a bit overwrought for my personal tastes, but I do like the looks of the DS3, although if I’d bought this Performance derivative I think I’d want it to be more different visually from its siblings, in the same way that you can easily spot a Type R in a crowd of other Civics. The car’s intent is made more obvious inside, though, thanks to seats with bolsters the size of barn doors, which provide a connection of sorts to the old DS 3 WRC car. Also in rally fashion, those seats can be adjusted so low that you can barely see over the top of the towering facia.
Normally a gravel-rash seating position gives you a greater sense of unity with the chassis, but in the case of this DS 3 that’s actually not something you want to encourage. Every road is a bumpy road in this car, and when you do encounter a surface that’s a bit gnarled and wrinkly, the suspension fights against it with all the finesse of a pneumatic drill. Throw in a steeply crowned road profile, mix liberally with the turbo engine’s seriously feisty delivery, and you’ll soon be donning a Stetson and cowboy boots and hollering ‘yeeha’ at the top of your lungs – country back roads taken at speed in the DS 3 are every bit as insane as riding the most bad-ass stallion in the rodeo, and just as unnerving, because you have little idea which way the car’s going to lunge next.
I so wanted to like the DS 3 that I dismissed its frenetic behaviour as the result of my first drive of it being at night. But next morning, in the daylight, it was just as dismal. A real shame, because that 205bhp engine’s a zinger and has so much more to give.
Dateacquired May 2017 Totalmileage 4565 Mileagethismonth 561 Coststhismonth £0 mpgthismonth 38.5