Citroen is an invererate under-steerer in all corners, fast or slow — its long wheelbase gives it excellent stability. Ride is in a class ofits own. Sleek lines make the biggest Cit look long, but actually it's the shortest of these three cars

Saab also has front-drive under-steer as its main characteristic, but there is more of a nose-tightening response to throttling off in mid-corner Fine ride over very poor surfaces is a particular feature of Swede, which keeps noise low, too

Citroen ist ein hartnäckiger Unter-steuerer in allen Kurven, schnell oder langsam – sein langer Rad-stand gibt ihm exzellente Stabilität. Der Fahrkomfort spielt in einer eigenen Liga. Schnittige Linien lassen den größten Cit lang erscheinen, aber tatsächlich ist er der kürzeste der drei Wagen.

Saab hat ebenfalls das charak-teristische Frontantrieb-Unter-steuern, ist aber etwas anspruchs-voller, wenn man im Scheitelpunkt der Kurve das Gas wegnimmt. Hoher Fahrkomfort auf schlechten Straßen ist ein besonderes Merkmal des Schweden, der außerdem noch sehr leise ist.

THE UPPER REACHES OF THE

managerial-car market remain stolidly conservative despite the best efforts of car manufacturers to persuade them otherwise. That conservatism is most strongly expressed when it comes to shape. People with a £10,000 upper limit lean strongly towards three boxes with the boot lid, like the tradesmen’s entrance, sealed off from the master's parlour. lt matters less if the front rather than the rear wheels are driven, as Audi have shown with the 100/200. In this area there is probably a profound indifference, if not ignorance, about petty mechanical details. Cars must look safe but smart, be well equipped and comfortable.

There is no shortage of competition for the valued custom of the £10,000 buyer: a quick survey shows more than 20 four-door or five-door saloons on the British market at between £8500 and £10,000. Those manufacturers who take the sector really seriously, like Ford, Mercedes and Volvo (see Giant Test June) offer two or three distinct models in this one narrow slot, while newcomers like Talbot’s Tagora keep adding to the crowd.

Opel’s Commodore is both an archetype of the class and an illustration of how a suitable model can be cobbled up to slot in at the right level. A gap existed between the four-cylinder Rekord and the 2.8 and 3.0litre Senator. Solution: take the smaller-bore 2.5litre, six-cylinder unit off the shelf, put it into the Rekord (read Carlton) shell, equip it suitably and price it between the two. Better still, offer two levels of equipment in separate models (Berlina and CD) to make sure the gap is well and truly closed. By any standard, the Commodore CD is well-equipped. It has electric windows, centralised locking, sunroof, foglamps, headlamp wipers, wide-rimmed alloy wheels and the mandatory full set of instruments. The surprising thing perhaps is that Opel choose not to offer it with automatic transmission as standard, but even with four-speed manual gearbox it is priced at £9610, or more than £1000 more than the Berlina (and only £400 less than the Senator).

Saab were quick to realise that a wider market could be found for their 900 if they moved away from the mildly sporting three-door and five-door image and added a series of booted four-door models to please conservative buyers. lt was a move carried out with success as well as skill and the results include the 900GLE which weighs in for this test at £8895, neatly splitting the £6825 of the 9OOGLS and the £11,195 of the rapid Turbo. The 900GLE is calculatedly well up in the equipment stakes too, with front electric windows, sunroof, high-quality Philips radio/cassette, headlamp wipe/wash and that Swedish speciality, heated front seats to ease the pain of winter.

Some companies, however, are incapable of conservatism. Any Citroen marketing man who suggested his company should produce a stolid three-box car would most likely end up doing a modern Saint Catherine strapped to the fan of the Velizy wind tunnel. Yet the CX cannot but be a strong contender for anyone's £10,000. Just how seriously the company takes the idea can be seen from the fact that they go to the trouble of offering two mechanically identical models differing only in trim and image, the £9144 CX GTi and the £9184 CX Pallas Injection.

Three cars, then: one orthodox, one a convert of a sort, one a dedicated nonconformist. At least it shows that the ten grand buyer still has real choice.

One of the interesting things in this comparison is how the Opel stands up in an aerodynamic sense to opposition from two companies who really know about low-drag design. Opel's slant-fronted nose and careful fairing show how the Russelsheim team took the energy crisis seriously when styling the Rekord/Commodore body. So too do the performance figures, with identical maximum speeds for the Commodore and the Saab, with near-identical frontal areas and only 3bhp between their quoted power outputs. The Citroen is another story altogether, finding another 9mph maximum for a quoted power advantage of only 10bhp over the Saab and 13bhp over the Opel. Only lower drag can explain that; or indeed the fact that while the CX GTi is nearly 4mpg worse off than the Saab in the official 56mph fuel figures, it is only 1.4mpg to the bat at 75mph.

Trying to prove anything from those official figures is dangerous unless you are aware of their limitations, but they do suggest that Opel's cam-in-head six-cylinder engine is less efficient overall since despite an arguably competitive drag figure (and the lowest weight of the three cars) it is less economical at either of the two quoted steady speeds. its city figure shows up better but in large measure this is due to the test procedure which insists on the use of first, second and third gears: hard luck for the five-speed Citroen and Saab, especially the Citroen whose intermediate gears are lower and more closely spaced. There are two good reasons why the Opel should be less efficient, of course. One is the higher mechanical loss inherent in its six-cylinder engine compared with the Citroen and Saab fours; the other is its use of a carburetor while the other two enjoy the benefits of Bosch‘s highly efficient fuel injection.

The Saab’s engine is the most recent design, progressively developed from the slant-four originally engineered by Triumph in Coventry (and therefore first cousin to the now-defunct Dolomite and TR7 power units). Opel's unit not only has more cyclinders but is notably bigger at 2.5litres. Despite its compression ratio of 9.4 to one its output suggests (as does its single carburettor) a relatively mild state of tune. It has been in production essentially unchanged since the mid-1960s. Citroen's engine can be traced back as far, having been launched in the DS in 1966 (contrary to popular legend, its foundations do not go back to the 1934 Traction Avantl). its Gordini-like crossed-over pushrods give it hemispherical combustion chambers and good breathing. Very much a ‘big four’ with its 2.35litre capacity, it manages to outshine the two rival engines handsomely in power and torque despite having the lowest compression ratio. lt needs that margin, too, because the CX is over 300lb heavier than the Saab and almost400lb heavier than the Opel, partly at least because of Citroen’s decision to mount the CX body on a kind of perimeter sub-frame which carries the engine and suspension mounts.

The Opel is totally conventional in its use of a live rear axle, located by four trailing arms and a Panhard rod. Front suspension is by MacPherson struts (replacing the double wishbones of the previous Rekord/Commodore range). Saab's engine is in-line, mounted above and slightly aft of the front-drive transmission. Suspension is by double wishbones at the front; at the rear the Swedes eschew independent suspension for a light dead axle located in exactly the same way as Opel's live one.

Citroen (of course) take the unique way out with a transverse engine, front-wheel-drive and suspension which is not only all-independent, but makes use of high-pressure hydropneumatics for springing and damping (combined in the GTi with hefty anti-roll bars front and rear). The system is self-levelling and the ride height adjustable through a range of several inches. Both Citroen and Saab have big disc brakes all round, and even share the engineering oddity (however sensible) of having the handbrake acting on the front wheels. The Opel satisfies itself with a conventional disc/drum arrangement.

All three cars are power-steered. At this level, some kind of assistance has become essential with the steady increase in tyre widths. While the Opel and Saab content themselves with the usual servo assistance (the Opel for its recirculating-ball system, the Saab for its rack-and-pinion) and something more than three and a half turns of the wheel between locks, Citroen once again provide the different answer in the form of, using pressure from the central hydraulic system — which also feeds the brakes — provided with artificial feel, automatic self-centring and just two and a halfturns between locks.

Differences vanish when it comes to overall dimensions. The Opel may look biggest, but the tape measure shows that the Saab is exactly the same length, though slightly narrower, while the Citroen is just four inches shorter but matches the Opel's width. The big difference comes in wheelbase, ranging from the Saab's 99.4in through the Opel's 105 to the Citroen’s 112in. Wheels are big, but the Saab’s are biggest, 15in against the 14in diameter of the other two. The Opel puts most rubber on the road, the test car being fitted with 70 section 195 Continentals. The Citroen contents itself with 185s (Michelin XAS, what else?) while the Saab carries the new 185/65 Pirelli P8.

This is a tale of gear ratios. In pure power-to-weight there is little in it: the more powerful Citroen is the heaviest car. But the Saab and Citroen dispose their five ratios very differently. The Saab treats its fifth as a cruising overdrive, pulling 23.4mpr per 1000rpm, so that at 105mph — all it will pull in fifth —the engine runs at no more than 4500rpm, well below the power peak. Fourth gear by contrast puts the engine pretty well on the power peak at maximum speed, and the lower gears are spaced accordingly. The Citroen on the other hand is geared (at 21 mph/1000rpm) to reach maximum speed in fifth and the lower gears, spaced accordingly, are lower than the Saab's. lf you can stand the extra gear changing, this gives the Citroen a considerable edge in acceleration at the inevitable expense of high-speed cruising consumption and noise. The effect is compounded by the low-speed lustiness of the Citroen engine which peaks that much sooner than either of the others. The GTi is easy to power off the line in a standing start because its tyres spin just enough to act in the same way as a nicely progressive clutch. In the Saab, the clutch itself has to serve its proper function. Standing start figures often depend on such niceties but in this case it is equally difficult to compare the accelerations in fourth gear (top for the Opel) because of the lower Citroen ratio.

From the driver's point of view the Citroen always feels quickest, which is another way of saying that in most given situations it has more acceleration readily available. The snag is getting used to those five ratios: many drivers will feel more at home with the Opel's four speeds in which second takes the car comfortably beyond 60mph and third runs close to 100mph. The Saab subjectively feels slowest, partly because of its higher gearing but also due to the cammy nature of its injection engine which seems to lack bite below 3000rpm.

Conversely, the Saab has easily the most relaxed engine when cruising fast, as well it might be with the high fifth gear. The Citroen engine is far from relaxed. The big four has never been noted for its smoothness (though if anything it is smoother than it was in its old and now superseded 2.0 litre form) and in flat-out acceleration it emits a remarkably sporting rasp. The saving grace is that the GTi‘s higher maximum speed means that it has more in hand when cruising at 100mph, let alone anything less, and the steady grumble comes to sound almost reassuring.

With an extra two cylinders, the Opel ought to be more refined and it is. Inherent six-cylinder balance plus careful mounting (note the damper strut under the bonnet) makes it very smooth, verging on the imperceptible up to about 80mph. Beyond that it falls victim to the German habit of gearing relatively low for good speed stability on the autobahn, becoming just a shade frantic and breathless as maximum speed is approached. Most of the time, though, it achieves conventionally what the Saab manages through its use of higher gearing: the relaxed air of a car content to purr along all day with a minimum of fuss. Add in the very high optional electric overdrive (see Newcomers, CAR).

The official fuel consumption figures just about reflect the truth where these three are concerned. In a fair mixture of driving the Saab consistently emerged as most economical, its 24.9mpg giving it a very useful edge over the Citroen’s 22.5mpg. The Opel trailed with 21 .6mpg; the overdrive would obviously help it on long runs. Tests at various average speeds round a road circuit showed no change in the order, just a widening of the Saab’s margin during gentle driving when it could be left in fifth gear more of the time. All three cars have big fuel tanks (the Saab’s enlarged by the use of the much-publicised space-saver spare wheel) and ail therefore offer a safe range of over 300 miles, with the easy possibility of 400 for the driver who feels less need to rush.

Citroen has futuristic, ergono-mically superb controls but primitive ventilation loses points

Saab’s layout is excellent, too, and its flow of air is considerable. Controls have a Mercedes-Benz like quality which the others can't match

Citroen hat futuristische, ergono-misch exzellente Bedienelemente, aber eine primitive Lüftung kostet Punkte.

Saab's Anordnung der Instrumente ist ebenfalls exzellent und der Luftdurchlass ist bemerkenswert. Die Bedienelemente sind qualitativ auf Mercedes-Niveau, unerreicht von den anderen.

The Citroen CX can't fairly be compared with either of the other cars — in fact it can hardly be compared with anything else. It has been said hundreds of times that you will either love it or hate it, and all that repetition has made it no less true. Drive the GTi even 100yards and you are aware of the different way it reacts. lt is not, you should note, simply the 2.5turn gearing: the Rover 3500 has 2.75turns for a very similar turning circle and nobody finds that especially twitchy. lt is much more the instant, but instant reaction of the system to the slightest movement of the wheel which puts people oft at first and causes them to zig-zag, kart fashion. There is feel because Citroen have carefully built it in, cunningly increasing the effort needed as the speed goes up. Even at low speed there is rather too much weight to it—there must be, because if you let go of the wheel it makes its dead-beat return to the straight ahead position. All that can be said is that some people have driven CXs hundreds of miles without ever being able to keep them in a relaxed straight line. Relaxation is at the heart of it, because those who learn the trick of thinking the CX round corners eventually find that any other car, let alone one this size, feels astonishingly clumsy.

The Opel is a good case in point. Its steering is very light for parking, but noticeably heavier on the move. There are times when a driver might wonder if there is any power assistance (if he coasts into a downhill corner he‘ll soon find out). There is plenty of reassuring feel, but the Opel is not one of that select company which provides superb feel without undue weight.

The Saab comes closer in this respect. In many ways it has an astonishingly Mercedes-like feel about it: there is a total absence of backlash, a solid precision which promises the car will always do exactly what you want it to.

Both Citroen and Saab are superb motorway cars. The combination of front-drive and good aerodynamics sees to that. By comparison the Opel is merely good, and in gusting sidewinds not even that. In the same way, the two front-driven cars are superior on poor surfaces: the Citroen because its suspension soaks up so much punishment without passing it on, the Saab because it was developed on (and for) Swedish backroads.

Citroen offers lots of cabin room, soft seats and expensive-looking trim but its headroom in the rear isn't as good as the Saab cabin can offer

Saab has roomy, sit-up-and-beg seating of good design, but cabin can be claustrophobic at times

Citroen bietet einen großen Innen-raum, weiche Sitze und hochwertige Materialien, aber die Kopffreiheit hinten ist nicht so gut wie beim Saab

Saab hat großzügige, gut designte Sitze zum verlieben, aber der Innenraum ist manchmal klaustro-phobisch.

These are three cars with different ways of cornering. The Opel is the easiest to understand, big but well balanced. Turn in abruptly and it will understeer. Use some finesse and it will ease through smoothly at surprisingly high speed. All that rubber on the road gives it a lot of grip, but control is good enough that most of the grip can be used. Pushed really hard the Commodore rolls noticeably and lifting-off in mid corner will bring the tail round, though never so quickly that opposite lock can't catch it. The two front-driven cars try to understeer as anyone would expect. The Citroen will do so with more determination if it is jerked into a bend with a lot of power coming on, but responds in a very mannerly way to the smooth approach or to easing off the accelerator to bring the nose back in line.

The most noticeable thing about the car (on dry surfaces at least) is the way the back wheels seem glued to the road. If you lose the CX, you will lose the front. Lt follows, and it can be very reassuring once you are used to the idea, that if you take care of the front, the back will take care of itself. The Saab’s principles are less strongly held. Cornering fast, it shows the classic reaction of front-driven cars to changes in power. Full throttle means more understeer. Lifting off means a tightening of line and, if persisted with, to a drifting wide of the tail. Really clumsy handling can set the car a long way sideways, though recovery remains easy even from angles which alarm the casual onlooker. For this reason the Saab is the most fun of the three cars for a skilled driver, though the Citroen is the fastest through all but very tight corners where its understeer is most determined and its long wheelbase is a handicap.

The Citroen’s Achilles’ heel is found in S-bends. The trouble with the hydropneumatic suspension is that it fails to provide any damping in roll; and while the GTi anti-roll bars prevent the body leaning too far their stored energy probably contributes to the way the car ‘flicks’ from one extreme to the other in mid-bend. In most cars such a reaction would set the back end going, but in the Citroen it has the effect of setting the car into the same kind of understeer which would result from a clumsy, abrupt entry to a single corner. Experienced Citroen drivers always give the CX (and the GS for that matter) a fraction of a second of wheel amidships between the two halves of an S-bend — a subtlety compounded by the need to keep positive control of the wheel when unwinding: one way to invite disaster in the CX is to let go the wheel and wait for it to find centre, because the powered self-centring will work too quickly.

The Citroen and Saab brakes feel similar in some important respects. They are powerful, effectively fade-free and can be applied hard with little fear of the car getting outof shape. Likewise the handbrakes, acting on the front, are extremely effective (except for handbrake turns). The Opel brakes are adequate by normal standards but can be provoked to fade noticeably in quick downhill driving and lock the rear wheels a little too early in an emergency stop. The difference, as always, comes in the Citroen whose brakes need far less effort, and far less pedal movement, to apply. Time and again the message is the same: the CX is not a car for the man who cannot adapt.

In most circumstances there can be few complaints about any of these three cars. The Opel has the most conventional ride, one that would feel familiar to anyone used to cars in this class, on the firm side at low speed but smoothing out nicely in the cruise. The Saab feels much the same though more absorbent, partly because of its bigger wheels and partly through having (apparently) more suspension travel. The Citroen is in a class of its own, giving the impression more of low-level flight than of being in contact with the ground — except, sadly, for a pronounced bump-thump at low speed across transverse road joints.

Not that everyone finds the Citroen ride to their liking. lt is the most prone of the three cars to induce travel sickness in those susceptible, since on anything but a dead flat road it can ease up and down like the swell on an almost-calm sea. It also shares with the Saab a tendency to fly straight on and then crash its front wheels down after single large humps like level crossings and canal bridges, a situation in which the Opel stays nicely level.

Citroen´s 2.4Iitre fuel-injected engine is lusty, torquey, but is inclined to be noisy at highest cruising speeds. Pushes GTi to 177mph top speed

Saab´s single overhead camshaft four-cylinder has unobtrusive per-formance, first-class fuel economy

Citroen´s 2.4 Liter Einspritzer ist drehfreudig, durchzugsstark, wird aber laut bei hohen Geschwindig-keiten und bringt den GTi auf 188 km/h Höchstgeschwindigkeit

Saab´s 4-Zylinder mit oben liegender Nockenwelle, unaufdring-licher Performance und erst-klassigen Verbrauchswerten

Where the Citroen really scores is on appalling surfaces. The Saab does well here too, but it lacks the CX's trick of carrying on as though it was still on a motorway, betrayed only by the occasional harsh crash which reveals how hard the wheels are working to stay on the ground.

On the rutted cart track with a high centre ridge the CX can be raised on its suspension to find extra clearance, a facility which is equally helpful when fording floods.

The Saab makes up some of the ground in its seating. The driver's seat in the Swedish car is height-adjustable and electrically heated and, for big people at least, it is well-shaped. For smaller drivers -those under six feet—there isn’t quite enough lumbar support. The Citroen and Opel allow their drivers to slouch rather more, the invariable prelude to backache, though neither is among the worst of cars.

Despite the differences in wheelbase there is little to choose in cabin space. For some reason the Opel restricts the rearward movement of its driver’s seat to an extent which makes it tight for anyone much over six feet, yet the total space in the car matches that of the Citroen and is marginally more than is found in the Saab. Saab and Citroen are both generous with front headroom, but in the back the Swede wins hands down (or heads up). Back seat width is just enough to take three —the Opel is the widest — but the shaping of the rear seats and the provision of folding centre armrests shows that the designers were more interested in seating two in comfort.

All three cars avoid one of the pitfalls of back seat design, that of setting the back of the seat too upright for comfort. The Saab is a clear winner of the heating and ventilation stakes, not unexpectedly.

Citroen boot is the star of the show — huge uncluttered, low to ground — and self-levelled by the rear suspension. There's no loading lip

Saab’s hatchback forebears have left notch car with relatively low lip, too. Boot is very roomy

Citroen Der Kofferraum ist der Star der Show – groß und nicht zerklüftet, tief am Boden – und selbst nivellierend durch die hintere Federung. Es gibt keine Ladekante

Saab’s Vorfahren mit Heckklappe haben dem Stufenheck ebenfalls eine niedrige Ladekante vererbt. Der Kofferraum ist sehr großzügig

Its volcanic heater and profusion of vents and outlets are complemented by a set of precise, easily understood controls. The Opel tries hard but can't match the standard either of heater output or control design, though its ventilation through-flow is strong. A faltering last is the Citroen with the weakest heater, the least through-flow of fresh air and the most awkward controls (on the back end of the centre console).

Overall noise levels are low whichever car you choose, at least up to 90mph. Beyond that the Opel finds increasing wind noise, while the Citroen engine becomes more obvious. The CX also suffers the highest general level of road noise. The Saab contrives to keep quiet almost to its fifth-gear maximum, a tribute to its effective sealing and possibly to the sound-deadening properties of its bigger wheels.

There is little to choose between these three in basic bootspace, though the manner of its offering varies greatly. The Opel's boot is conventional, with a high rear lip. The Saab's is better for loading, taking advantage of its hatchback forebear to provide a much lower sill. Even then it is beaten by the CX whose boot- almost perfectly regular in shape — sets its sill less than 20in from the ground, and lower still with the suspension ‘collapsed‘.

Bonnet designs also differ. The Opel‘s release is on the wrong side (from a British point of view) of the car, while its hefty bonnet needs to be lifted and propped manually — a sure sign of proletarian origins. Citroen also leave the release on the left but at least the front-hinged bonnet props itself open. The Saab bonnet rolls and hinges at the front in a complex but satisfying motion which opens up the engine compartment very efficiently.

Once again it's the maverick Citroen which you love or hate — or in this case both. Arguably the best set of minor controls in any car— grouped at finger-reach on the ‘flying saucer’ behind the wheel — goes with an instrument setup with which Citroen have persisted in the face of every kind of condemnation. Speedometer and rev counter are lens-faced horizontally revolving drums. If you like the rest of the car, you'll get used to them.

Hint for prospective owners: study the handbook carefully. The Citroen press office issues journalists a separate instruction sheet on How To Find The Instrument Lighting Rheostat. Without some such briefing, you can spend a long journey looking for it and the range of brightness is greater and more critical than in most cars because of the Cyclops-eye main instruments.

Citroen’s single wiper needs simple mechanism leaves parts of screen unswept; roof console with light, demist switches makes plenty of sense

Saab reclining rear seat allows long loads to be carried; skinny spare helps load space, as well

Citroen’s Einarmwischer ist einfach konstruiert, lässt jedoch Teile der Windschutzscheibe ungereinigt; Dachkonsole mit Licht, Front-scheibengebläse macht viel Sinn

Saab Die umklappbare Rückbank erlaubt den Transport langer Gegenstände; schmales Ersatzrad schafft Platz im Kofferraum

Compared with such futurism the Opel and Saab seem almost dull in the completeness of their driver information and the efficiency with which it is presented. The Opel may annoy design purists with its oblong minor dials alongside the round speedometer and rev counter. A good point is the provision of wheel-tilting for extra thigh clearance for fatties; an annoyance is the device which stops you taking out the ignition key except by fiddling a separate catch. In this the Saab is much more logical — you can’t take out the key without putting the gear lever into reverse, forming a very effective anti-theft device. Putting the ignition keyhole on the floor between the seats (with thoughtful little light so you can find it at night) quickly seems a logical thing to have done.

lt is in their more major controls that the cars differ. The Citroen is light, almost twitchy in every respect except its clutch, which verges on the heavy, and its long-travel, clonky gear change. The Saab carries over the Mercedes-like precision to most of its controls with the emphasis on smooth, positive operation rather than lightness of touch. The Opel is the heaviest, the hardest work to drive in mixed conditions. One notable point is the accelerator whose return spring seems quite needlessly heavy, tending to cause ankle-ache if you have to hold it partway open for a long time. The Commodore gear change on the other hand has more of the slick precision you would expect from a well-tried four-speeder in a conventional driveline, although it feels very meaty.

There should be few complaints where the rest of the driver's equipment is concerned except for the Citroen once again: the CX has a single big wiper pivoted at centre screen and leaving an unwiped patch at either top corner. At least it’s the same for the French. Opel and Saab switch their wipers to right hand drive pattern for Britain, and powerful washers linked to a few sweeps of wiper operation are standard for all three cars. The Opel and Saab add headlamp wash/wipe as standard. All three use H4 halogen headlamps, very powerful on main beam. The Saab has the best dipped beam pattern.

At least these three aren’t clones: the £10,000 buyer still has some real choice. First off, you have to accept or dismiss the Citroen. It does so many things so differently, not only from the Opel and Saab but from any other car, that you have to ask yourself if its virtues (or even its idosyncrasies) really appeal to you. If they do, there is no substitute. If you have to back up your hunch with some rationalisation, then the CX GTi is cheaper than the Opel as tested and not much more expensive than the Saab. It is substantially quicker than either while retaining competitive fuel consumption. It has a superb ride (unless you must carry a habitually queasy passenger in the back when you drive quickly), superb straight-line stability, superb brakes, excellent road holding, very good handling once you are used to it and can allow for its unique foibles, is very roomy and has a convenient boot.

Against that, one could argue that if the CX really was the car of the future (remember it was launched in 1974) then somebody else ought to have shown signs of following the same road by now. Many of its minor features are annoying in some degree. It needs better heating and ventilation, even if they have already had one major rework. its resale value compares badly with that of the Saab, or even of the Opel. Most important, though, is the fact that a lot of people simply can't get on with the CX, and you have to convince yourself you aren’t 0ne of them before you take the plunge.

That said, what of the Opel and Saab? The Opel looks the part and in CD form it is extremely well-equipped. It is roomy, more than adequately comfortable most of the time, refined and quiet; a solid, honest, no-nonsense car. Yet the Saab does a lot of things better than the Opel. They are neck and neck on performance, but the Saab has a decided edge in economy. It has better front seats, a better ride when the going gets rough, better straight-line stability and is light and less demanding to drive. Its rear seat squab folds down for long loads even though it’s a notchback and is over £700 cheaper, and that starts to look like folding money even at this level, even without the Commodore CD's foglamps, central locking and alloy wheels. There are, as we said at the beginning, a lot of cars around looking for the same kind of buyer. Of these three you have either to go out on a limb with the Citroen, or accept the Saab as a workmanlike compromise with no obviously weak points and a really strong line in value for money.