Launched in September 1997 on the same platform as the Peugeot 306, the Xsara replaced the ZX and carried over some of its unusual chassis tricks: passive rear-wheel steering built into the suspension bushings, and engines canted rearward in the bay to improve weight distribution.[1] A substantial September 2000 facelift touched almost everything: new sheet metal, a stiffer body, wider tracks, bigger standard wheels, and a wholesale change of engines, dropping the 1.8-litre range entirely in favour of new 16-valve 1.6 and 2.0-litre units.
Every power figure recorded here is published directly in kW, so none needed converting. Kerb weight is a genuine gap: the article states that the facelift made the car about 80 kg heavier, but gives neither the before nor the after figure, so the field is left as an explicit placeholder rather than a guess at either number.
