Features

The rest of the dash is satisfyingly minimalist and in keeping with the car's architecture and philosophy: you don't need a dinner-plate rev-counter when your means of propulsion has such a flat torque graph and is hooked up without option to an auto 'box.

And a digital speedo is just fine (Citroen used them before digital existed by printing numbers on a revolving drum), especially when it's mirrored by a head-up display.

But if you pack all the gizmos - the head-up display, radar cruise, electric rear seats, navigation, phone - into a C6, you bump into a very nasty figure: about £37,000 for the petrol and £2,000 more for the diesel (the only sane choice). Here in Britain, hardly a soul will buy this car and if they do, they're going to be facing a depreciation nightmare.

And I don't suppose the creators of the C6 would do anything more than shrug their shoulders in a Gallic fashion fully endorsed by the Ministry of International Stereotypes. They work hard to sell a lot of Cs 1 to 4 here, but the C5 is marginal, as the C6 is likely to be more so.

See the C6 wasn't designed for us. It was designed for a particular stratum of French society, who all got their higher education at the same institution: the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.

Here, the brightest and best of France's youth learn how to be government ministers and civil servants and industry chiefs. In their future lives, they'll frequently meet and even swap jobs in an endless carousel. It's why industry and the state remain so close in France, while they're so antipathetic in Britain.

There's a lot of truth in the old barb about big French cars selling well only to the French government. Citroen's top brass didn't make the C6 for you and me. They made it for their old college mates. So if we get some enjoyment along the way (and I really did), that can only be an added bonus.

Read Citroen C6 Car Review

Citroen C6 road tests
Citroen C6 3.0i V6 - January 11, 2006