Citroen C5 X review

You're sitting, front or back, in a fairly car-like posture, not the upright position of a crossover. It's just that everything – floor, seats, ceiling – is a bit higher than it would be in a regular saloon or hatch. So it's easy to get in and out, and you have a slightly more elevated view.

Is it as comfy as Citroen promises?

It's quite nice inside the C5 X, it has to be said. The seats are big and soft, as you'd expect when the whole pitch is about comfort. And top spec ones even get a 15mm layer of memory foam. Unsurprisingly they're not that great at clamping you in corners, but you can solve that by driving a bit more sedately. The dash and door furniture is nicely trimmed, with some textured wood-ish stuff, rubbery wrappings and soft mouldings. Some nice chevron stitching around, too.

The driver display will show most of what you might want, but not all at the same time (and there’s no traditional analogue view), so you find yourself swapping between options, via a stalk button. But from mid-level Plus trim upwards, there's a huge head-up display, so you can just stick the navigation graphic up there, and use the normal instrument screen to show simple trip computer and powertrain readouts.

What's the infotainment like?

The central touchscreen is big (10in in entry spec, 12in elsewhere), so much so that you can split it into tiles, for map and music, say. Below there are a couple of hard buttons. One is a home button that also toggles between the native screen and Apple CarPlay, which is standard and wireless on all trim levels. The other calls up the driver assists, including shortcuts, which makes it easy and non-distracting to switch the lane-departure system on and off. Hooray.

But it's not the most intuitive system we’ve ever used, and navigating through the menus is a frustrating experience. Indeed, we found ourselves unusually using the voice control. Fortunately, below the screen you’ll find physical controls for adjusting the air conditioning including temperature and fan speed, plus heated seats if you’ve got them, so you seldom need to go screen-diving for the other climate functions. More good news. Surely ease of use is what luxury is all about, too?

What's the space like inside?

Legroom in the back is fine, and foot space too as long as the driver hasn't got their seat all the way to the bottom. The boot has a big square opening, a low sill, and rubbing strakes along the floor carpet. All very estate-like, though of course the sloping rear glass isn't great for tall cargo.

Fancy some figures? Well, the combustion cars get 545 litres of space back there, and 1,640 litres if the rear seats are folded flat. The PHEV’s battery eats into that slightly, so you get 485 litres usually and 1,580 if you’re using your C5 X as a van.