TG's small SUV test: VW T-Cross vs DS 3 Crossback vs Toyota C-HR

Can there be a more stereotypical use-case than this? Dropping my child off at primary school, I pass both a C-HR and a T-Cross. No DS 3 Crossbacks yet, but parked over there is a Fiat 500X, across the road a Jeep Renegade, and outside the school gate an unmatched pair of Jukes. Actually, my kid walks to school (this is London and most of her classmates do too), but you get the picture. These things are becoming default small-family town cars. They’ve a bit more space than a supermini, but they’re slightly smaller than a Focus or Golf when you need to park them. If not for off-roading, their drivers clearly think they’re OK for up-kerbing. Plus, it’s a style thing: they don’t look like a driving-school hatchback. Trouble is, at least two of the cars in this test are prima facie exemplars of style over substance.

Look at the DS 3 and C-HR. Poor packaging, can’t see out of them, high centre of gravity as the enemy of agility and aerodynamics, odd-shaped switches eccentrically disposed across their dashboards. We’re all for a bit of biodiversity in the automotive forest, but these two are going to have to work pretty hard to prove to us they aren’t an evolutionary cul de sac.

Images: Mark Riccioni

Volkswagens, on the other hand, always feel like the result of ongoing natural selection, their weaknesses rigorously bred out across the generations. Poking around the T-Cross, you’d never guess it’s actually the first of a new species in the VW genus: it looks so rational and sorted. Its boxy shape encloses a roomy cabin, the styling guaranteed not to cause a ripple. That doesn’t mean it’s lazy; the metalwork is well resolved and the lighting details done with love. We’ll avert our gaze from the silly stickers behind the rear doors, as they’re an unwanted gift of the First Edition trim. 

The DS 3 Crossback is a bolder-looking thing. Its aim is to stand out without trying to affect either sportiness or machismo, because any fool knows neither of those are really possible in a small crossover, and neither would speak to DS’s heritage. In places it’s puzzling, but that’s French luxury for you: billowing sculpture and lavish jewellery – lots of chrome, adaptive LED lights, motorised doorhandles. 

The Toyota looks as Japanese as the DS is French. Like the outcome of a long night in the manga bars of Akihabara. As with the DS, its designers took delight in putting stuff where you don’t expect it, and in deconstructing parts that’d normally be integrated. Most of the time there’s an enjoyable visual playfulness in all this. But then you come to the rear doorhandles. Are they the messiest piece of detailing on any car ever? 

The DS and Volkswagen ride on their respective Group’s most recent small-car platforms. In the DS’s case, that’s very recent indeed. In this test, they both line up with three-cylinder engines, the VW’s a 1.0-litre of 113bhp, the DS a 1.2 of 128bhp. Bear in mind, when looking at the VW’s significant price advantage, that the one we tested has a manual gearbox, and an auto, which our DS and Toyota test cars are, is another £1,500.

The Toyota is the odd car out. It’s bigger, 24cm longer than the DS, and it’s a hybrid. Toyota does actually do a 1.2-litre turbo manual C-HR, and I’ve really rather enjoyed that combo when I’ve driven it, but the company makes such a fuss of the hybrid that it seemed rude not to. So we’ve got a Prius drivetrain, consisting of a 1.8-litre nat-asp engine with Atkinson valve-timing for midrev efficiency, teamed with a pair of electric motors, all three dividing their efforts via a planetary gearset. This makes it the most economical car in the test. But it arrives, panting, at 62mph nearly a second after the VW and two after the DS. 

Driving at low speed and accelerating gently, the hybrid C-HR is just fine. It eases its way through traffic with liquid smoothness, giving only the subtlest hints when the engine is, and is not, running. In town, you’re operating via electricity alone for a high proportion of the time, although not of the distance. But beyond that gentle envelope, it’s pretty horrid to use. The petrol engine groans and vibrates, and the elastic oscillations of revs, unrelated to speed, are off-putting. In corners, you can’t use engine braking or choose your exit torque with much precision. On open roads, the revs rise and fall with headwind and gradient, so in unconsciously trying to keep the revs level, your road speed goes all over the map. Even though hybrids show their best fuel economy advantage in town driving, the C-HR is still pretty thrifty driven with moderation on longer routes: 50mpg is there for the taking, which is good for any crossover. If it’s a company car, the CO2 rating corresponds to a tempting tax break but not an irresistible one. 

The little three-cylinder engines in the T-Cross and DS both sound cheerier (though they’re nicer again in their makers’ proper hatchbacks). When working in the mid-ranges, their noise is softened off by their turbos, but mostly the DS is both quieter than the VW and usefully quicker, especially for opportunistic motorway overtakes. The T-Cross’s gearshift is a bit clunky, while the DS’s autobox usually operates adroitly, unless you floor it and it tumbles down two or more ratios. Luckily, there are paddles so you can override. A bigger issue surfaces in stop-start traffic. It’s bizarrely snatchy coming to rest. While none of them falls apart when you get to a twisty road, don’t expect more than a blanket of offhand obedience. You instruct them, rather than drive them. 

The T-Cross manages to feel most like a car, steering where you aim it and holding its line, even when being hit by bumps. It’s quite well damped too. The ride is firmish but not unpleasant, though it will clang into a sharp ridge or pothole. 

The C-HR name refers to coupe-high rider. Sounds a bit lost in translation, but does sum up the static qualities of the Toyota’s cabin. You sit high, with a lot of metalwork and black trim to impede your view over your shoulders. The people in the back have decent legroom but headroom, above and to the side, isn’t over-generous. The rear side window runs out before your head begins, blocking the view to the side. 

The DS, too, feels cramped in the back, because it’s dark, and has a high window line with that shark’s fin towards the front. Strange really, given this class of car is usually seen as kid-friendly. But the main reason it feels cramped is that it is. This is the smallest car, but the lack of rear seat legroom is out of proportion. 

The VW is barely bigger outside but has much more space within, and it’s airier too. Grown-ups can happily sit in the back, and if it’s only kids then the rear bench slides forward to make the boot usefully bigger. The T-Cross also has a pretty excellent infotainment screen, and it runs phone mirroring. Its switches are logical, both on the steering wheel, and for the climate system. The instruments, whether the real ones or the optional digital set on the test car, are crystal clear. But the screens and switches are mounted in furniture of deadly dull shapes, and the plastic panels for the dash and door liners are universally hard and grey. Even the stripy appliqué, again a First Edition thing, is depressingly cheap. If you came out of a Golf into this, you’d feel literally hard done by. 

The DS is the complete opposite. The cabin is mostly plush materials, with lots of metal inlays and stitched pads. And it looks properly striking, like one of those flashy concept-car interiors we always complain never get manufactured. Well, here’s why they don’t: it turns out to be pretty tricky to use – the instruments are well-rendered but illegible, the menus too nested, and the diamond-shaped touch switches distracting. But at least there’s escape in the form of an HUD and phone mirroring. 

The Toyota also goes for flamboyant cabin design, and it mostly works more straightforwardly than in the DS. But its touchscreen is a terrible flop, with slow and ugly graphics, and no mirroring.

At the end, then, the VW is a clear winner when you tot up its pluses and minuses. But you can get a much nicer car if you spend the same money on a Golf, a bigger and more refined car that’s also more fun. So logic doesn’t enter into it. We’ve told you what’s right and wrong with these cars, but you’ll go away and choose the one you like the look of.