Moskvich 5 review: a full look at the crossover
There are two ways to review a Moskvich 5. One is to treat it as a revived nameplate and disappear into the history. The other is to look at the car in front of you, work out what it is made of, and judge it on that. We hire ours out several times a month, so the second approach is the one that matters — and the one that helps if you are deciding whether to spend a week in one.
Start with the badge, then put it aside
The Moskvich name carries weight, most of it historical. The modern car wearing it has very little to do with the saloons your grandfather might remember. Expecting a spiritual successor to a 1970s model will only lead to disappointment, and writing the car off because of the badge is equally lazy. Judge it as a current compact crossover, because that is exactly what it is.
What it is underneath
The Moskvich 5 is a rebadged JAC Sehol X6. This is not a secret or an accusation; it is simply how the car came to exist, and it is the single most useful fact for anyone working out whether to trust it. JAC is a large, long-established manufacturer, and the Sehol X6 is a mainstream crossover built in volume.
For a driver, badge engineering of this kind is mostly good news. You are not getting an experimental one-off. You are getting a car whose components have been built in quantity, with the ordinary quality baseline that implies. Where it matters is in the details that do not always survive a rebadge — infotainment translations, exact trim specification, parts supply. Those are worth checking on an individual car rather than assuming.
Engine and gearbox
Every Moskvich 5 is turbocharged. There is no naturally aspirated version, which removes the usual trap of accidentally choosing the slow one. The engine is a 1.5-litre turbo petrol and output varies by version across a band from roughly 136bhp to 184bhp. Ours sits around 150bhp, a sensible middle of that range for a car of this size and weight.
Drive goes to the front wheels through a CVT automatic. CVTs divide opinion, and it is worth being honest about why. In town the gearbox is genuinely pleasant: no hunting between ratios at 20mph, no small lurch pulling away from lights. Ask for a sudden overtake at 40mph and you get the familiar CVT behaviour instead, with revs climbing ahead of the speed and holding there. It is not unpleasant, it is just not a dual-clutch. Build speed half a second earlier and the car is fine.
Size and packaging
The 5 is a five-door, five-seat compact crossover of roughly 4.5 metres long, 1.85 metres wide and 1.70 metres tall. Those numbers place it squarely against the mainstream compact SUVs most British drivers already know, and in daily use they matter more than any power figure.
At 1.85m wide it fits multi-storey bays without the sideways shuffle wider crossovers demand. At 1.70m tall it clears the common 1.9m and 2.0m height barriers comfortably. And the seating position gives the raised view that is the actual reason most people buy a crossover, while keeping a footprint closer to a family hatchback.
Two numbers we will not give you
Boot capacity in litres and real-world fuel consumption get quoted for this car all over the internet, confidently and inconsistently. We are not going to add another set of figures to that pile.
If we have not measured it ourselves or verified it against the manufacturer's own documentation, we would rather say so than guess convincingly.
What we can say from handovers is that the boot takes a large weekly shop plus two soft weekend bags without dropping the rear seats, and that the car is not thirsty in the way a larger turbocharged crossover would be. For a purchase decision, get exact figures from the handbook of the specific version — specification varies between versions more than you might expect.
Who it suits
Someone who wants a raised driving position, an automatic gearbox and five usable seats without paying the premium a German or Swedish badge adds to the same recipe. It is undramatic in the best sense: it starts, it is comfortable, it is quiet enough at 60mph, and it asks nothing unusual of the driver.
It will not suit anyone who wants steering feel or who regularly needs brisk progress on a fast A-road. Those drivers will know within ten minutes, and should look elsewhere.
Verdict
The Moskvich 5 is a competent, rational compact crossover wearing a name with more history than the car itself has. Knowing it is a JAC Sehol X6 underneath should raise your confidence rather than lower it: a mass-produced mainstream platform is a far safer basis than a boutique one. The 1.5 turbo and CVT are well matched to British town driving and only mildly frustrating on a slip road.
The reliable way to find out whether it suits you is several days rather than an afternoon. Our Moskvich 5 hire in Salford starts at a single day and runs to a month, and we would rather you formed your own view than borrowed ours.