It's all in the name

COOL car, the Citroen DS3. A typically trendy magazine crowned it the world's coolest car last year, and I complained loudly that I wasn't cool enough to understand why. Then I drove it and discovered it was brilliant, so it got my vote as well. The Citroen DS3 is cool, even when it's being driven by someone who isn't.

Here's the rub though, it is a cool Citroen and - despite the company's drive to make the DS label a sort of brand within a brand - that's the label it's going to live with. There's nothing wrong with that; I've always thought of Citroen as a cool company, because it's behind everything from the beautiful, Maserati-engined SM, through a succession of CXs, XMs and Xantias, to the wonderful floating steering wheel on the old C4. Get quizzed by your mates down the local, however, and you can't tell them you drive a DS. You drive a Citroen.

My point is that I don't think there's ever been a brand-within-a-brand that's ever worked, because most people are badge snobs and just look at the keyfob. BMW's M cars, for instance, are legendary for being giant-slaying stealth saloons, but tell anyone other than a hardened car enthusiast and they'll only be impressed because you drive a BMW. This is the reason, I reckon, for the Honda NSX being a flop over here. For all its Ferrari-bating performance, fine handling and handsome looks, it was still a Honda.

Remember the Xedos 6 and Xedos 9? Don't worry if you can't, because Mazda couldn't master it either. Despite lots of publicity at the time, the two are now considered just two other cars in the company's back catalogue. It didn't - in this country at least - give the MX-5 a fancy badge, but people flocked to it because it was the right product for the right time. Proof that the car itself matters more than the badge it's wearing.

I can think of just one exception to the rule, which comes from all you Range Rover owners out there. It might be built, designed and sold by Land Rover, but for dinnertable bragging purposes it is always emphatically a Range Rover.

Then again, Citroen could well prove me wrong. If the DS4 and DS5 are anywhere near as good as the DS3, we've got a couple of crackers on the way.