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So, you put your
right foot on the brake pedal (no left foot braking
here - the pedal is offset too far to the right),
engage drive, release the foot operated parking
brake and off you move. Everything feels
conventional - the steering, the low speed ride.
Engine noise is subdued, the accelerator pedal feels
quite heavy and unresponsive. The first application
of the brakes reminds you that you are driving the
successor to the DS, SM and CX - the pedal is rock
hard and has hardly any movement.
The four speed
auto box is utterly unobtrusive, changing down at
the right time - you rarely find yourself in too
high a gear with the engine off-boost - in fact, I
would go as far as saying that I would hate to be
saddled with a manual gearbox again.
The car is
essentially neutral in its handling - true, as might
be expected, it understeers in extremis but
it is very forgiving - lift off in the middle of a
bend or even brake hard and the car loses speed -
without drama or fuss.
And you find
yourself braking on bends far too frequently - not
because you are traveling too quickly but because
your progress is baulked by conventional machinery
traveling substantially slower than you.
It is all too easy
to travel at far higher speeds than are legal - a
combination of low noise and the superlative ride
and handling.
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As
velocity increases, the ride, which was
nothing special, improves, the steering
which initially felt rather unresponsive
is, you discover, very precise, enabling
totally accurate placement of this big car
even if feedback from the road is masked.
As
confidence increases, so you discover that
this softly sprung barge has incredible
grip and superlative handling.
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But what of the
ride - after all, the Hydractive
suspension is the car's raison d'être
and is the result of nearly 50 years of development.
As mentioned
earlier, it is nothing special at low speed - but
this has always been true of hydropneumatic
Citroëns. At speeds below 50 mph/80 kph, the car
feels conventional - the driver of a Mercedes or BMW
would notice nothing amiss. As the speed builds up,
the ride improves although it is still far firmer
than a CX driver - even a CX GTi Turbo 2 driver
might expect.
Body roll is
minimal and the car is not caught out by humpback
bridges and the like. Hydractive 2 offers you a
choice between two suspension settings - there is no
discernible difference in ride comfort between the
two although handling is slightly more neutral in
the sports setting and steering response appears
sharper.
To sum up then,
the XM is a wonderful, high speed, long distance
cruiser. It is truly a Gran Turismo or Grande
Routière in the tradition of the 15 CV, the DS, the
SM and the CX. It is also highly individualistic in
appearance which is refreshing in an era when most
cars are anodyne and bland to look at.
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