Features

The door bins might be a bit OTT, but they never fail to raise a smile: semi-circular wood-veneered doors glide down to reveal big, magazine-sized pockets. They glide smoothly back up too. In past Citroens, the action would have been one of reluctantly grinding brittle plastic. Here, it's nicely oiled.

The C6 wafts along with terrific serenity. The windows are frameless for reasons of style, but they keep any wind noise out quite well enough, because they are laminated. The petrol V6 is quiet at a cruise, even though it seems to have to work ridiculously hard when you ask for sudden acceleration.

It's a pleasant enough noise but to be honest, the performance is nothing special. The V6 diesel is the one to have - this is the twin-turbo shared with Jaguar.

But what really makes things special is the ride. It can absorb big ruts and pot holes as if by magic. That doesn't mean it manages to mask the road from you completely - there's still some short-amplitude harshness that the bushes don't seem to be able to filter out, and you're more aware of it than in other cars because in other ways, the ride is so good.

But overall, it's an amazing system, especially when you realise it's not hopeless at cornering. Once it senses a curve, or that you are braking, it automatically stiffens both the damping (many cars do that) and the springing (a highly unusual benefit of the fluid suspension). So it keeps its decorum far better than you'd have imagined, given the ride's downy softness.

Yet the C6 is always clear about its identity - and it's about luxury, not sportiness; another reason why the styling emphasises the front overhang rather than hiding it. There's hardly any feel in the steering, so you're not meant to go squealing about the place. It's just that the suspension firms up to keep you at ease and confident in the sort of fast sweeping roads France has lots of.

The Hydractive suspension is a big-Citroen article of faith, of course, but there's other new technology too - like the pop-up pedestrian-protection bonnet, which just beat Jaguar's XK version to the market. Lane-departure warning too.

We tend to think the Germans and Japanese are the guvnors with in-car tech, but the French are proud of their technologies as a nation. I give you Concorde, the TGV, their nuclear power programme - and they sell their trains and atomic stations worldwide.

Citroen also has a habit of persisting with their own technologies when the rest of the world has moved on. They still use Minitel in place of the Internet for all sorts of transactions, and still use a hopelessly outdated CD navigation system, controlled by a ghastly, old-hat, button-festooned centre console. Actually there's voice activation, and Bluetooth for the phone, so they could have concealed the buttons behind a flap.