2011 Citroen DS3 First Drive

As recently as five years ago, the Citroen part of the PSA Peugeot Citroen automotive group was regarded as the producer of the most innocuous wallflower-style cars in all of Europe. If you were a man or a woman who never wanted to have either sex or adventure in your life ever again, then a Citroen was the car for you.

It's now very early in 2010 and we've come to zip around Paris on a Friday and Saturday under a brilliant cold sun in the stunning little 2011 Citroen DS3 two-door premium hatch. Yes, we said stunning, premium and Citroen in the same breath. In these five years since the revamped Citroen design squad started showing its now hotly anticipated concepts at the European auto shows, the hallowed French brand now has overtones of the same unconventional thinking that once made the 1934 Citroen 11CV Traction Avant such a statement of style and innovation.

The 2011 Citroen DS3 is a very particular French take on everything that Mini has done and cars like the Alfa Romeo MiTo and Fiat 500 (and even the Scion xB) have tried to emulate. It sells a premium look that can be highly individualized, while offering up-to-date, large-car technologies to people interested in smaller, more efficient cars.

After a three-hour tour during which the weather never started getting rough but our tiny ship was deliberately tossed, we knew the courage of the fearless Citroen crew had paid off. With the 2011 Citroen DS3 1.6 Turbo THP tested here, we have a new Mini, folks, and it's at least the equal of the British/German effort in most ways and better than it in others.

Citroen, the U.S. and the DS
First off, get no fanciful thoughts in your heads that, like Fiat, Citroen is going to suddenly find an avenue back into America anytime soon by following some semi-bankrupt American brand, as Fiat has done. Despite having sold 1,346,000 vehicles all around the world in 2009, Citroen has never found love in North America. Moreover, it would cost entirely too much these days to try and buy that love, no matter how much we might rave here about the 2011 Citroen DS3.

But there once was a time.... Like in 1954, when Charles Buchet arrived in New York City to officially revive an entity called the Citroen Cars Corporation. Offices came to be located at 300 Park Avenue and a western office was established on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills under the management of Armand Garnier. Everything rode on the company's latest work of aesthetic and technological art, the DS-19.

Unfortunately the DS-19 was entirely too far ahead of its time for Americans (and perhaps Earthlings in general). Without tailfins and a V8, this four-cylinder French thing just wasn't destined to fly here, and Citroen officially pulled out of the States by fits and starts between 1974 and '77, saying that its Maserati-powered Citroen SM didn't satisfy our bumper regulations. For awhile recycled examples of the 1948 Citroen 2CV were sold here, but the brand disappeared after a group in New Jersey quit its misguided effort to import the XM Citroen V6 between 1992 and 1994.

More Mini Than Anyone Will Tell You
The 2011 Citroen DS3 is the very first model to carry the new Citroen branding and logo. Now the brand is meant to relate to Peugeot a bit like Abarth is to Fiat, or what the swiftly changing Lexus we've been watching lately is to Toyota. And whereas the original Citroen DS was meant deliberately to sound like "Déesse," or French for goddess, the new DS marketing effort is centered around the concept of "anti-retro." Even the Citroen execs will allow that the only characteristic touch from the famed models of yore is the shark-fin B-pillar.

Citroen will show a street-legal version of the DS3 that Sebastien Loeb will drive in the 2010 WRC.

Most pleasing about the DS3 is that it comes off as very French, and by that we mean it's an execution that no other nationality of car company would ever commit to, nor with such ballsy aplomb. As it happens, it was a prêt-a-porter fashion week in Paris during our drive, and we were frequently mobbed by photo and film crews working for various designers who thought the DS3 would look ideal in a fashion photo.

Underneath all of this French style (and a platform built for the forthcoming Citroen C3) lies the latest 1.6-liter inline-4 originally produced by the collaboration between PSA Peugeot Citroen and Mini. The main parts for the transverse-mounted EP6DTE Prince engine are all made at the PSA Douvrin factory. For all Peugeot and Citroen models using the various iterations of the 1.6-liter, the engine is entirely assembled at Douvrin, while all Mini Cooper and Cooper S 1.6 engines are built up at the Hams Hall factory in the U.K. The unit runs as well in French guise as it does in the British getup.

Cleverly in Between
But whereas the naturally aspirated 1.6-liter Mini engine makes 118 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and the turbocharged Cooper S version hits 172 hp at 5,500 rpm, the 2011 Citroen DS3 1.6 THP makes 153 hp at 6,000 rpm, right between the competition. The car itself drives more sweetly than the sometimes self-consciously harsh Cooper S in tough cities, yet it absolutely has the punch to get across town every bit as well.

The 2011 Citroen DS3 is only 0.4 inch shorter in length than a Mini Clubman for good interior space, has a nearly identical wheelbase to the regular Mini Cooper at 97 inches for outstanding maneuverability, is 1.3 inches wider than all Mini cars, and is nicely taller than them all, too. And there are 10.1 cubic feet of cargo space.

Paris, Early on a Saturday Morning
The PSA-built six-speed manual transmission for our top-of-the-line DS3 had just the right ratios for this engine, which makes 11.6 psi of boost from its Garrett turbocharger. The slightly notchier feeling to the gear engagement versus the mega-smooth six-speed of the Minis was actually really pleasing in the hand.

The maximum torque of 177 pound-feet chimes in at just 1,400 rpm and stays there through 4,000 rpm, getting us to a 60-mph run on the Champs Élysées (clocked very unofficially, you understand) in just 7.1 seconds. All along the way, we noticed a lack of cabin noise, something in sharp contrast to our experience in cheaply assembled Citroens of the past (ah, the ghost of the Citroen 2CV). The 17-inch Bridgestone Potenza all-season tires offer more comfort than a Mini delivers and yet the engine's dual exhausts do a nice job of letting the world know we are in a performance-style car.

And You Get a Show
There are literally 12 different wheel designs buyers can choose from for the 2011 Citroen DS3. The four stock roof colors are Botticelli Blue, Carmen Rouge, Onyx Black and Opale White. And there are four roof graphics patterns that can carry these colors: Onde, Pearl, Urban Tribe and Zebra. There are eight separate looks for the front shelf and dash, seven looks for the manual shifter and three different colors for the optional leather upholstery. In all, there are 38 different roof/body color combinations alone, and then you take it from there with everything else.

The process is referred to as "co-design" and involves the sales point personnel working together with each customer in creating a version of the DS3 using an on-site 3-D interactive configuration screen — or "configurateur 3D point de vente."

Much More Coming for DS
The whole nouveau DS approach was decided in February 2009 in time for Citroen's 90th anniversary. While the double-chevron Citroen hood badge just underwent a slight reinterpretation, the DS models running in parallel to the standard bread-and-butter range is a wholly new deal.

For now we have the striking 2011 Citroen DS3 based on last year's DS Inside, a concept at the Geneva auto show. By 2011 we'll see the slightly larger DS4, an eye-grabbing GT model inspired by the 2005 C-Sportlounge concept. Finally, by 2012 there will be a DS5 based on the extravagant four-door 2008 Hypnos showcar.

But, again, trust us, this 2011 Citroen DS3 1.6 THP is a great experience, and definitely not just all show and no go. There are buckets of the latter and just as much of the former. If the full DS3 range were for some bizarre reason to go on sale in New York City and L.A. again really soon, the less powerful versions could start as low as $14,000. Pas mal.

And just wait for this year's Geneva show, when Citroen will show a street-legal version of the car that Sebastien Loeb will drive in the 2010 World Rally Championship, the Citroen DS3 Racing, which will use more boost and a reprogrammed ECU to deliver about 195 hp and 203 lb-ft of torque. It has a wider front track, four-piston calipers for the front brakes, a more aggressive suspension tune and some aero body trim, and some 1,000 examples of the car will be built. It's meant to slay the Mini John Cooper Works over those mountain passes above Monte Carlo.

Edmunds attended a manufacturer-sponsored event, to which selected members of the press were invited, to facilitate this report.