Citroen C5 X vs Alfa Romeo Giulia

What's the difference?

This is a new take on the Citroen station wagon, and it’s an impressive one at that. It may not tick all the boxes, but it is a comfortable and practical car, with stunning design, decent equipment and a pretty agreeable price tag.

Now, just get that plug-in hybrid version in at a reasonable price please, Citroen.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

The Giulia is a love letter to the increasingly lost art of the sporty executive sedan. As refined as it is beautiful and oh-so elegant to drive, it’s a reminder of why we always love Alfa Romeo, even when the odds are against it.

Emotional cars like this are hard to come by and they will soon be gone, replaced by something new. The future is not necessarily worse, but it will be different, so if a sporty European sedan with a combustion engine is calling out to you don’t miss your opportunity to drive the Giulia while it still exists in this form.

Citroen reckons the C5 X combines SUV, wagon and sedan design cues to make it a true crossover model. I reckon they’ve got a point, and while it’s certainly not as butch as some other crossover wagons out there, it’s not bashful, either.

I’m a massive fan of the assertive front end lighting design, the bold body lines that punctuate the bonnet and swoop backwards down the sides of the car, and the swooping roofline that dips away, almost like the iconic Citroen DS.

It’s quite a large car, too - at 4805mm long on a 2785mm wheelbase, it has a commanding presence, and it’s 1865mm wide (not including the side mirrors) and a rather sleek 1490mm tall. 

Of course it has some body cladding and black plastics to give that ‘rough and tumble’ appearance - and the rear features a couple of spoilers on the boot that help it cut through the air cleanly, and they look interesting as well.

Inside, there’s an almost-square steering wheel, which is interesting, and a pair of screens - a 12.0-inch touchscreen for your multimedia duties, and a 7.0-inch driver info screen. It looks and feels upmarket and pretty conventional in the cabin, so let’s see what the practicality is like.

Like any good Alfa Romeo should be, the Giulia is a work of art. It’s sleek, sharp, and immaculately proportioned.

This most recent update has artfully refined a formula too good-looking to mess with. The increasingly dorky headlamps from the previous car have been swapped out for a more contemporary all-LED set, with a three-bar DRL pattern.

The grille has also been tweaked for this update for a more modern style, and the Veloce is now graced with the iconic and more aggressive sport two-tone alloy wheels in the traditional five-hole 'tele-dial' style.

It’s effortlessly attractive, and instantly recognisable as an Alfa on the road. I can’t think of a better way to stand out in today’s executive sedan landscape.

The interior has received less of an upgrade for the 2024 model year, with the same core parts. The major change is the old-school analogue instrument cluster being swapped out for a slick 12.3-inch digital unit.

The puzzling thing about this is the 8.8-inch central multimedia screen hasn’t been upgraded in-kind, making a strange contrast between the sharp and fast digital instruments, and the laggy and dull multimedia panel.

At least it effortlessly sits behind the curvaceous design of the dash as to not interrupt a good shape.

There are of course plenty of other touches which I love. The leather seats look and feel the part, as do the real metal paddle shifters which float behind the simple yet refined and sporty steering wheel.

The push-to-start button on the wheel is reminiscent of other Italian sports machines, while the tasteful smattering of leather, gloss plastic, and textured surfaces keep the premium feel on-track.

Some areas I’m not so keen about: Some of the interior plastics, particularly for buttons and toggles, feel cheaper than they should, and the door cards are oddly basic considering how much attention has been given to every other part of this car’s look and feel.

The Citroen C5 X is almost as big as a Subaru Outback, and similar in size to a Kia Stinger. So it ought to have a bit of family-friendliness packed in.

Starting at the back, there’s a 545-litre boot capacity, with the kick-action, electronically controlled tailgate that you can also use the keyfob to open. It is a low, wide, quite squared-off aperture, meaning loading bulky items in should be a breeze. Just note that the roofline does taper down towards the rear, so bigger things will need to be pushed towards the seat backrests.

Or, if you’re really acting like a delivery van, you can drop the rear seats down to allow 1640 litres of cargo capacity. There are boot-mounted releases to drop the seats down, and there’s a floor mat in the boot, under which is a space saver spare wheel.

Back seat occupants are decently catered for. I’m 182cm/6’0” tall and I managed to sit behind my own driving position with plenty of leg and foot room - however, the sunroof does create a bit of a hump in the ceiling that you might bump your head on, and those with big feet or small children might want to take note that the sills in the door openings are very tall. A child could easily trip over them if they were clambering in the back in a rush.

Children will be covered with a pair of ISOFIX child-seat anchor points in the window seats and three top-tether restraints, too. There are map pockets, door pockets with bottle holders, a pair of USB-C charge points and directional air vents, too.

However, it wouldn’t be a French car without some kind of quirky cup holder situation, and the back seat has none - there’s no flip-down armrest to speak of. But the seat is exceptionally cushy.

Front seat impressions are good - and cup holders are present. They’re big ones, too - large enough for a big cuppa or a bottle of water, even, And there are door pockets with bottle holsters as well.

There’s an opening centre armrest box with a USB-C charge point, and in front of the interestingly designed recessed gear selector and parking brake, there’s another storage spot with a wireless phone charger, too. Nice.

Seat comfort up front is very good, with lots of adjustability (eight-way electric for the driver, six-way electric for front passenger) and heated front seats as well.

Scoring a big tick from me is the fact there are physical dials and buttons for the air conditioning and ventilation controls. But they’re in that glossy black finish, which shows fingerprints so much that it makes you feel self-conscious of being a walking germ farm.

The big touchscreen multimedia system has a few buttons and knobs, too - though the menus on screen do take some getting used to. It is highly customisable, so if you bought one you’d set it and forget it, but on first impression I struggled to get to grips with some of the nuances of the menus.

It does, however, have wireless or wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (with the media-feed USB-C port under the controls) and it goes full screen, too, while leaving enough space for other crucial elements. The graphics are nice and high-definition, and the 360-degree camera display puts  the “surround” view units in Peugeot models to shame. 

There’s also a configurable driver info screen, and a crisp and lovely head-up display as well. 

The Giulia is an old-school low-slung sports sedan. Many will prefer the SUV sensibilities of the Stelvio, with its bigger hatch-opening boot, and its higher ride height can better accommodate less mobile passengers, and makes it easier to fit child seats and the like.

For those willing to trade those things away for a superior drive experience, the Giulia is still solid to live with every day, but has a few drawbacks.

For example, those strangely basic door cards offer only a tiny map pocket with a nook I’d hardly describe as a bottle holder.

The centre console offers two larger bottle holders with variable edges, but there’s also not much else in the way of storage in the cabin aside from a smaller-than-average glove box and armrest console box.

The big win for me is the physical dial set and shortcut buttons for all the key climate functions, making it easy to operate while you’re concentrating on driving.

At least the seats are well bolstered, and front passengers are treated to plenty of adjustability. Visibility is okay, and it was easy for me to find a comfortable driving position at 182cm tall.

The rear seat is a similar story. It’s tighter, and you have to duck down below the roofline to get into it.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find enough room for my knees and somewhere for my feet to slide behind my own driving position, although the centre position is all but useless thanks to an enormous raise for the driveshaft.

Headroom is passable, but you wouldn’t want to be much taller than me. 

There are, again, tiny bottle holders in the doors, and a further two in the drop-down armrest. Rear seat passengers get dual adjustable air vents on the back of the centre console, one USB 2.0 outlet, and elastic nets on the backs of the front seats.

The boot measures 480 litres which is up there with a lot of mid-size SUVs, but because it’s a sedan, access is more limited, and it won’t accommodate as many awkwardly-shaped objects.

The Giulia we’re looking at for this review is the mid-spec Veloce, which costs $74,950 before on-road costs, sitting above the base Ti ($68,450) and below the top-spec Quadrifoglio ($153,700).

Natural rivals from Germany include the Audi A4 45 TFSI ($77,869), BMW 320i M Sport ($80,200) and Mercedes-Benz C200 ($89,900) all of which suddenly make the attractive Alfa look like a not-half-bad deal.

But then there’s always the Genesis G70 (from $63,000 in equivalent turbo 2.0L form) to bring the value equation back to reality.

Standard stuff at this grade includes 19-inch alloys, an 8.8-inch multimedia touchscreen and a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster (new for the 2024 model year), dark contrast exterior highlights, leather seat trim with heated front seats and steering wheel, aluminium interior detailing and shift paddles with extended leather trim on the dash, updated LED headlights and DRLs, dual-zone climate, push-start ignition and keyless entry, tinted rear windows, and a 14-speaker Harman Kardon audio system.

Performance-wise, the Veloce also scores a limited-slip rear differential to match its punchy engine.

The tech feels a bit old, and the interior has a dated ambiance to it compared to the more open and digitised spaces of its rivals, but there’s something to be said for how organic the Alfa feels. More on this later.

Yes it’s almost 2023, but the Citroen C5 X model launching right now isn’t bringing anything new or exciting to the table in terms of what’s powering it.

Instead, it runs a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine that is also used in other Citroen and Peugeot models. No hybrid tech, no electric version yet….  But Citroen has stated it is keen to bring a plug-in hybrid model to the market. Hopefully, it comes soon.

The petrol motor used here is the brand’s PureTech 180 with Stop & Start, and it’s good for 133kW of power at 5500rpm and 250Nm of torque at 1650rpm. This isn’t a small car, but it is relatively light, weighing in at 1439kg (tare mass). 

However, it has a pretty small engine with low outputs for this type of vehicle. For context, the 508 from Peugeot has 165kW and 300Nm.

The C5 X has a standard fit eight-speed automatic transmission, and despite some SUV pretences, it’s a two-wheel drive, with power sent to the ground via the front wheels only.

That much-anticipated plug-in hybrid (or PHEV) uses the same petrol engine but adds an 81kW electric motor to the mix, for a combined output of 168kW of power and 360Nm of torque. Grunty.

The Veloce might not pack a Ferrari-derived six-cylinder engine like the Quadrofoglio, but its smaller 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine hardly wants for power.

Packing 206kW/400Nm it outpunches six cylinders of old easily, and is still capable of sprinting to 100km/h in a hot-hatch baiting 5.7 seconds to a Vmax of 240km/h.

It even sounds fantastic, as it flies up the rev-range living up to every bit of the Alfa promise. Peak power arrives at 5250rpm, but peak torque hits at 2250rpm.

Smooth shifts are provided courtesy of an eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission.

If you see a brand-new Citroen C5 X in the showroom or on the street you’ll note that the sticker on the windscreen shows an official combined cycle figure of 6.0 litres per 100 kilometres. For a petrol engine, that’s impressive.

Now, whether you get near that will be determined by how you drive. Lots of city and urban driving could result in a higher figure - but it does have start-stop tech for the true traffic grind.

On the launch drive, which included a mix of different driving situations, I saw an on-display return of 8.5 litres per 100 on the trip computer.

Fuel tank capacity is 52 litres, meaning a driving range of 866km if you can achieve the official figure, or 611km if you average what I did on the launch drive.

Can’t wait for the plug-in hybrid version of this car; it has claimed efficiency one-fifth of the petrol version launching initially - yep, it sips a claimed 1.2L/100km… but of course that relies on you making sure you actually charge it up and use the 50km of EV driving range it is said to offer. We’ll cover it off in more detail when the vehicle launches locally, likely sometime in 2023.

The 2.0L turbocharged engine has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of just 6.1L/100km, although I saw 9.0L/100km in my time with it.

I’ll admit it was being enthusiastically driven, and treated to lots of urban commuting.

The Giulia has a 58-litre fuel tank and requires mid-shelf 95 RON premium unleaded fuel. Its approximate range on a full tank at the official consumption is 951km.

If comfort is your main priority when it comes to your new car, then the Citroen C5 X (or any Citroen, really) should suffice.

The brand says that comfort is one of its defining features - a pillar of why Citroen exists, if you will - and as the flagship model in the brand’s lineup, this should represent the ultimate in comfort. 

And it does. 

The seats - with triple-layer foam - play a big part. They’re wider than most seats and, while they don’t hold you in place like the buckets in a sports car, this isn’t a sports car. 

It also has acoustic glass front and rear to help make it feel more serene and ‘cocoon-like’ inside. There’s barely any wind noise, and just a touch of road roar over coarse-chip roads, but it’s far from noisy in the cabin.

Further, it glides along with relative comfort over bumpy sections of road, with the so-called Suspension with Progressive Hydraulic Cushioning all-but eliminating road surface intrusion into the cabin. 

The suspension has hydraulic cushions at the ends of the springs and dampers (but before the bump stops) that are designed to delete the little bumps in the road surface, while also helping lessen the impact of larger imperfections like potholes. And, with the launch being held in Sydney on yet another wet day, the suspension did a spectacular job. 

You can still feel the 19-inch wheels moving around a bit when you sink into a pockmark, but the way it feels from the driver’s seat is very good. I didn’t get to play passenger on this launch drive, but the seat of the pants vibe I got was that all occupants will be cosseted nicely. 

That tendency towards relaxed movement is reflected in the handling of the car, too. It’s not a corner carver. You can engage Sport mode - which adapts the powertrain (engine and transmission calibration and sensitivity) and also the steering weight, if you really want to.

On the engine - it is perky enough in Sport mode and can do the 0-100km/h sprint in 8.1 seconds, according to Citroen.

This powertrain should really be categorised in the ‘comforting’ rather than ‘compelling’ category. It’s not a bad engine - but you can feel the weight of the car is holding it back, and it particularly feels a bit sluggish from a standing start. I also noticed a bit of vibration through the car under full-throttle acceleration, too. 

But honestly, unless you were trying to duck through a gap in traffic, you’re not likely to spend much time with your foot pinned to the boards in this car. 

I love and admire that this isn’t a car designed to be sporty. It isn’t trying to be that. The PHEV version will be more of a driver’s tool, with an adaptive suspension system and more power and torque. But honestly, I’d be happy with the C5 X as it is, because it’s just a lovely car.

Put simply: The Giulia is a celebration of Alfa Romeo. Yes. Even with a humble 2.0-litre turbocharged engine and an automatic transmission, this is a deeply emotional car. A riveting experience from behind the wheel.

Fly round corners, your eyes wide, exclaiming ‘magnifico!’ as the Giulia gracefully leans in, the rear LSD, sporty tyres, and wonderfully tight steering working together in harmony as you eke out just a smidge of tyre roar.

Laugh out loud to yourself, as you plant the accelerator, hear the muted rumble of the surprisingly angry little engine, and feel the turbocharger kick in half a second later as you power out.

‘Eccezionale!’ You’ll think, as you feel the click of the immensely satisfying metal paddle-shifters, and the transmission responds in-kind, the engine roaring up the revolutions with enthusiasm.

Sure, the Veloce grade is not as raw, or as wild, or near as fast as the top-grade Quadrofoglio, but all of the exciting spirit of  that car is still here, and at a little over half the price, too. The Veloce is an absolute delight to drive.

It has such poise, makes such a fine sound, and does it all so gracefully. This is how you make a car feel as one with the driver.

Even the ride is deeply impressive. It’s not too harsh or noisy, while gifting the chassis just the right amount of lean in the corners and allowing enough play for it to remain controlled over bumps.

Not only does it work well when you’re driving as it's clearly intended to be driven, but around town it’s quiet and refined inside, living up to the promise of a luxury sedan.

The seats and bolstering are great, the visibility isn’t too bad, and while I’ll complain about the slightly laggy software on the multimedia screen, the digital dash is responsive and the physical climate controls are welcome.

It’s not all perfect. If it were, I think it might cease to be an Alfa Romeo and start sprouting BMW badges.

For example, our test car, with less than 2000km on the odometer, had various inconsistent rattles emanating from the plastic garnish around the digital dash, and somewhere behind the back seat.

Regardless, driving this car has made me a little sad Alfa will be putting this wonderful platform behind it in pursuit of more electrified goals.

I can only hope wherever the Giulia nameplate goes next, it retains the spirit of this version.

The same safety equipment suite is standard on every Giulia variant.

Advanced active gear includes auto emergency braking, lane keep tech, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, driver attention alert, and adaptive cruise control.

It also scores front and rear parking sensors, and a reversing camera with guidelines. 

The Giulia’s maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating expired at the end of last year, as it was originally rated back in 2016. The facelifted model is ‘unrated’ relative to ANCAP’s current standards.

Buy a Citroen and you get a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, as well as five years roadside assist and a five-year capped price servicing plan.

The C5 X isn’t cheap to maintain, with the average service cost sitting at more than $560 - that’s based on service intervals of 12 months/15,000 kilometres. 

Alfa finally updated its warranty to a more industry-standard five-years and unlimited kilometres in 2022.

Service intervals occur at 12 monthly or 15,000km intervals for the 2.0-litre turbocharged variants. Pricing was not available for the model year 2024 version yet in the brand’s online calculator, but to give you an idea for the pre-facelift version, pricing came in between $345 and $1065 per visit, averaging $573 per year for the first five years of ownership. Not cheap, but not as expensive to run as you might expect.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is depreciation. Boring, I know, but even late model examples of the Giulia and Stelvio have been hit particularly hard by the depreciation stick according to residual values we searched up on Autotrader.

For reference, the Genesis G70 and BMW 3 Series have both fared much better in equivalent 2.0-litre turbo forms.