Price £15,048
MPG 47.9
Top speed 132 mph
The art of disrobing is all about speed. It should be slow, deliberate, teasing… which is why cars make such lousy strippers. They can't wait to get their tops off. The Mercedes-Benz SL can do it in 16 seconds, Audi's A5 drops its top in 15, VW's Golf takes nine, while Mazda claims just five seconds to let it all hang out. The early folding-roofed cabriolets also had to be parked up with the handbrake on before they started unbuttoning. These days they can do it on the hoof – travelling at 15, 20 even 25mph. But Citroën's DS3 cabriolet sets a new record – it can wriggle out of its top at 70mph. And at the first sign of modesty or when the rain starts, it can pull it back on without ever slowing down.
Blasting along the A3, my wife had had enough of being lashed with her own hair and decided to close the roof. She held the button down and the canvas canopy started moving from the back of the car towards the windscreen. As the wind roared overhead I fully expected it to act as a cloth wing and for us to take off, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style. Rather prosaically, it merely clicked shut, and we drove sedately on…
You'd think people who buy convertibles would be natural show-offs, but many have a morbid fear of being stuck at a red light while their roof completes its 18-step closing routine. It's quite a bonus to be able to do it on the move, but 70mph is definitely overkill.
The DS3 cabriolet – the cloth-top version of the award-winning Citroën supermini – isn't actually a full-blown convertible as its trademark shark-fin side pillars don't retract (ie. dip below the surface). The car harks back to the old sardine tin roll-back roofs of the 2CV and the C3 Pluriel. Some people have been snitty about this, but sitting in a fully exposed convertible on a sunny day in the city can be an intimidating experience. By keeping the sides you get that sense of being outside but not right under the noses of those prying pedestrians on the pavement.
The main opposition facing the DS3 is the Mini and Fiat 500 convertibles. But the DS3 has an ace up its sleeve: it's the only one of the three that can seat five people – the others are four-seaters. It also has the largest boot but, to accommodate the concertinaed roof, the aperture has been designed like a large letter box – a hopeless solution. Over the week I was testing the car I found myself loading the back seat with shopping through the open roof rather than trying to post the bags into the boot.
The Citroën comes with a choice of three petrol engines (an 80bhp three-cylinder 1.2, a 118bhp 1.6 and a 154bhp 1.6 turbo – a 1.6 diesel is set to follow). I drove the range-topping petrol version which with the roof down produces a really satisfying sporty exhaust note, but it offered more power than the car needed. The 118bhp would be more than enough.
Handling isn't as immediate as the 500 or the Mini, but then this car is a little bigger and I would trade go-kart handling for the extra head and leg room any day. Rear visibility with the roof stowed is almost nonexistent, but all models come with parking sensors.
It's posh and stylish and relatively modest – al fresco motoring for the body-conscious.
