Citroën C5

The Citroën C5 is a large family car produced by the French manufacturer Citroën since early 2000. The C5 replaced the Citroën Xantia in the large family car class.

First generation

The first generation C5 was available as a five-door liftback or station wagon. Unlike its predecessors, the C5 was a liftback with a three-box design and a hatch. This form actually disguised the hatch, so Citroën has completely reversed the design philosophy from the fastback sedan era of Robert Opron. Power came from 1.8 and 2.0-litre straight-4 and 2.9-litre V6 petrol engines as well as 1.6, 2.0 and 2.2-litre direct injection diesel engines.

The first generation C5 was the last Citroën developed under the chairmanship of Jacques Calvet (1982-1999), a period which saw the marque's historically distinctive design and engineering brand erode markedly.

The C5 had a further development of Citroën's hydropneumatic suspension, now called Hydractive 3. The major change with this system was the use of electronic sensors to replace the mechanical height correctors seen in all previous hydropneumatic cars. This allowed the suspension computer to automatically control ride height: at high speed the suspension is lowered to reduce drag and at low speeds on bumpy roads the ride height is raised. Manual control of ride height was retained, though it was overridden by the computer if the car was driven at an inappropriate speed for the selected height. Certain cars also featured the computer controlled ride stiffness seen on the Xantia and XM.