Our cars
OCTOBER 2019 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 129
Voy a g e o f
discovery
Breakfast (twice), an
Avantime and a beer!
Our DS 7 makes easy work of dull journeys, short or long. By Colin Overland
AND THEN THERE WERE TWO
Time to find a mate who’s travelling to Stafford
by train. We’ve agree to meet not at the station
but at the nearest pub, so he has somewhere
dry and comfortable to wait, and I don’t have
to battle the congestion of the short-stay car
park. The sat-nav excels here.
4
DS 7 Crossback
Prestige 225 EAT8
Month 5
The story so far
Flashy but also substantial
crossover from PSA’s upmarket
niche brand scores highly on
comfort and ambience
+ Roomy, reassuring,
comfortable family transport
- Expensive; dynamically blunt
Price £39,530 (£40,280 as
tested) Performance 1598cc
turbocharged four-cylinder,
221bhp, 8.3sec 0-62mph,
141mph Efficiency 34.4mpg
(official), 32.8mpg (tested),
134-136g/km CO2 Energy cost
18.7p per mile Miles this month
1318 Total miles 14,947
Logbook
MON FRERE!
At the Stafford Showground, as luck
would have it, I park the DS next to
another French oddity, the fantastically
unpopular Renault Avantime (the
three-door luxo-coupe MPV from the
early noughties, and not to be
confused with the marginally better
selling Vel Satis, the luxo saloon).
5
NOT JUST TRANSPORT
A bit of local knowledge comes
in handy – I know the A5199 will be
quiet, giving the big DS the chance
to engage with a few bends in its
smooth, soft way. This heavy,
front-wheel-drive crossover is
nobody’s idea of a country-road
scorcher, but those bends help
make the journey less of a slog.
2
BOOTY CALL
Even the most selfish day out must
involve some multi-tasking, so my
drive from Northampton to Stafford
to look at old motorbikes starts
with a minor detour to a recycling
bank. The DS 7’s boot isn’t huge,
but big enough to get rid of a
wardrobe full of old clothes.
1
I park the DS next to another
French oddity, the fantastically
unpopular Avantime
THIRSTY WORK
The journey home involves heading east
to Derby, pausing for refreshment near
Shardlow, then down the M1. It’s
smoother than the drive up, but the
morning’s stop-start traffic had done its
damage to the day’s economy: low 30s.
6
SECOND
BREAKFAST
O’CLOCK
Slow going on the M6
brings the chance to
optimise the instruments,
and finally get them
showing what I want. The
lure of Greggs at Hilton
Park Services proves
impossible to resist. Love
the architecture, although it
could do with a lick of paint.
Today’s reassuring stodge
takes the form of a nacho
chili cheese bake.
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