Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £16,095 to £22,595
Good-looking; well-equipped; option of conventional steel-spring suspension; improved handling; serene driving feel and quiet ride.
A relatively conservative and unadventurous Citroen; residual values may still be poor; poor reliability record of last C5.
One of the more appealing large saloons around - as long as the company is paying.
This new C5 is Citroen's attempt to get it right.
The previous one could hardly have been more wrong, a car doomed at birth by its frumpy, slab-sided styling and instant, image-trashing discounting. This time the C5 plays the premium-wannabe game, like the Ford Mondeo and Renault Laguna but, judging by styling that brings back an almost-forgotten notion of beauty in cars, more convincingly than either.
The C5 now comes in saloon or Tourer estate form. The saloon is a proper separately booted four-door, rather than a hatchback in visual denial, and from behind its concave rear window echoes those of the C6 and large Citroens of old. The Tourer (on sale in June/July 2008) has wraparound taillights with an unusual 'bite' out of their lower edge. The tall doors of both versions give the effect of a high waistline and solidity, working well with the elegant roofline. All in all, it's a much better-looking car than the dumpy, frumpy old C5.
The C5 shares the rear-end underpinnings and fuel tank layout with the larger C6 and also has much in common with the Peugeot 407 - all three cars share the same basic front and rear suspension layout, for example. In a departure for Citroen, however, the self-levelling oleopneumatic suspension (Hydractive 3 Plus) has been dropped from the entry-level versions, which will be offered with 'normal' steel coil springs instead.
Engines for the range are 110bhp 1.6 HDI, 138bhp 2.0 HDI, 173bhp 2.2 HDI and 208bhp 2.7 HDI diesels, or 1.8i (127bhp) and 2.0i (143bhp) petrols. Specification levels are badged SX, VTR+ and Exclusive.
