French brand’s segment-bending flagship goes after Audi and BMW with plush cabin, strong refinement and and 466-mile EV range
If you believe the grande fromages at DS, then we are now entering the third act of the luxury French brand’s near twenty year existence. From its rebirth as an upmarket Citroen supermini in 2009 through to its launch as a standalone brand five years later, this is the moment everything has been leading to: the point at which it’s finally ready to go toe-to-toe with the luxury elite.There’s certainly a sense of ‘now or never’ about the firm, which has struggled to capture the imagination of well-heeled punters who, attracted to Audis, besotted with BMWs and mad about Mercs, are proving hard to win over. As a result, it’s launching a raft of new models at once, including a compact hatch tested elsewhere in these pages. But it’s perhaps this, the No8, that is its most ambitious addition.On first encounter with this genre-bending saloon-fastback-crossover – with its lofty ride height, fastback roofline and limo-like rear doors – rivals don’t immediately spring to mind, but the Polestar 4, Mercedes GLC and Audi Q6 E-tron are cited as key benchmarks.However, while the Q6 E-tron is named as compeition in terms of size, price and capability, DS No8 more in line with the smaller Q4 E-tron to give it a significant advantage when it comes to value-for-money. Yet it is a truth universal that the premium segment is a notoriously tough part of the market, and that’s before you consider the EV angle. For DS this is compounded by the fact it’s still a new-ish brand that’s still yet to demonstrably crack the UK in the same way that, say, Polestar and Cupra have despite being around for longer and having a the benefit of a long history (the original DS of 1955) to leverage in its quest for credibility. So, what have we got? well, the No8 indirectly replaces the plug-in hybrid 9 saloon as DS’s flagship exec, and if that car’s UK performance is anything to go by – nine sales last year, and just 139 in the four years it was available – it’s going to have a tough time luring fleet buyers down the road to the diamond-clad DS dealer on design and equipment alone.It’s got more than a fighting chance on paper, though, courtesy of its more crowd-pleasing crossover-ish styling, plus some properly compelling performance and equipment attributes. But can it prove itself more than a recommendable left-fielder?
