Citroen DS3 review - Telegraph A range of contrasting roof colours, stickers and an array of dashboard colours made choosing your style of DS3 like sorting out jelly beans from a giant jar. Leather upholstered seats, piano-black lacquered surfaces and fake suede inserts jostled together inside the car to form a combination as studiedly fashionable as a 17 year-old's Saturday night ensemble. Prices started at less than £12,000, which aimed a fatal dart at Mini's heart, but then came the DS3 Racing, so sure of itself that Citroën didn't even bother to price it lower than a comparable Mini. They knew it blew Mini away, even though it used the same engine as the Mini Cooper S JCW. Drawing on Citroën's long run of success in the World Rally Championship, the 205bhp DS3 Racing was the most powerful hatchback the company had ever produced. Its suspension and ride had also been tweaked to startling effect by Citroën's racing division so that, instead of offering a form of transport like the motorised knuckle-duster it resembled, it actually drove with good manners and outlaw gusto. Now comes the DS3 Ultra Prestige - at which point we have to say to Citroën "This has all been terrific fun but perhaps you're taking it a little too far?" The Ultra Prestige is to the original DS3 what that Essex girl Chantelle is to Cheryl Cole. You can see the connection. It's obvious that they share the same origins and attitudes. Yet one teeters just on the edge of tasteful restraint while the other goes completely over the top. The leather seats on the Ultra Prestige shade from white to black like the raccoon dye on an Essex girl's hair. Its white leather dashboard is like the buffers around her dressing table. It all goes to show that there's a perilously thin division between being a desirable accessory and looking like a joke. Citroën DS3 Ultra Prestige Price: £20,700 Power: 154bhp, 0-62mph: 7.3secs Top speed: 130mph Average fuel consumption: 47.1mpg CO2: 139g/km Insurance group: 23E Rating: five stars for effort, two for taste How does the Citroën compare? Mini Cooper 2.0D SD Price: £21,070 For: holds value Against: square as an old hat Rating: 3 stars Price: £19,400 For: Audi qualities Against: Audi pretensions Rating: 4 stars