DS 9 review

If this car had an Audi badge on the front, it would sell by the heap. BMW shifts 14,000 5 Series annually, in a good year. In a single week, BMW would hope to sell most of what DS is going to shift in 12 months.

That puts into perspective just how modest the expectations for the 9 are. DS is being realistic. This isn’t going to be a volume-selling machine that rocks continents and shifts the car world on its axis. It’s a hyper-alternative choice. 

So, if you like rarity, you’ll be especially interested, given this will be a scarcer sight in the UK than any Lamborghini. Naturally the dealer network is much less prevalent than the big players too, but DS prefers to operate in boutique stores than out-of-town car lots. 

For retail buyers, you’ll be able to manage a DS membership via an app that allows you to rent different products within the DS range for, say, your family holiday, or a visit to a city when plug-in ability is a boon. But three quarters of the DS 9s you do spot will have been bought as company cars, not private purchases. 

DS 9 trim lines are mercifully easy to decipher. There’s no such thing as a bottom-of-the-range model: all are highly specced. Things kicks off at just over £40k for a Performance Line+ with the non-hybrid engine. The other, plusher trim level is Rivoli+, which sounds like a Lidl brand of posh pasta but actually blesses the 9 with air filtration and road-scanning cameras which pre-emptively soften the suspension when a pothole is sighted. 

It’s about £5k to upgrade from the Puretech 225 petrol to the E-Tense 225 PHEV, with prices for the flagship E-Tense 355 still to be revealed. ‘Over £55,000’ is expected. DS says 60 per cent of sales will be plug-ins. 

We found finance deals online stretched from £780 to £900 per month across the range, based on 10,000 miles a year over three years with a 6-month deposit. A German exec saloon is a little over half as much money per month. Vive le difference and all that.