Peugeot 408 review: Vive la différence
All Peugeot 408 New
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Peugeot 408 |
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Class="contextmenu rating |
★★★★☆ |
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price Class="contextmenu |
Puretech For The 2 1 €41,995 And 6 1 The Phev €53,345 For |
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Emphasis">engine “Non,” say the French. "Assez de ces absurdités de SUV, disent-ils. Nous avons quelque chose de différent - et de mieux." For non-Francophiles among you, the line above basically means – ‘Enough of this SUV crap, we’ve got something different – and better.’ Well, the French are known for their assiduous dismissiveness when it comes to anything they didn’t invent or otherwise come up with. Indeed, they are nearly as bad as our nearest neighbours in the UK in this regard, despite the fact they no longer control a great empire, have mighty industrial strength, or anything much else, in fact. But the French are still in control of something of an empire, still have considerable industrial might and as much hauteur as any non-French could stomach. They are different – vive la – and they like being different and that’s why they’ve taken up the cudgels against the SUV, despite the fact they have been among the genre’s pioneers, having made a wide variety of interesting and innovative such machines. But, it would seem, they’re sick of all that and want something new. And that’s exactly what we’re driving this week – the new Peugeot 408. Understandably – but somewhat mystifiably – what they have not told anyone is that there’s another one of them, which is made by sister-company Citroen. That car is the CX-5 which we have reviewed in these columns in the not-too-distant and found to be a decent enough thing. Notwithstanding the blinkered non-recognition of a semi-stablemate, the 408 was designed to be the anti-SUV. What we have here, essentially, is a high-riding beast which has all the cladding you’d expect to see on an SUV, except it has a four-door coupe body. The cars come with a choice of one petrol and two hybrid engine options – there is of course no room anymore for a previous Peugeot strength, diesel – and we’ve driven two of them, the diminutive 1.2 PureTech petrol and the 1.6 PHEV GT which has a system output of 225 bhp, but more of that later. The look of the 408 – a car which bears no relation to the 408 saloon and hatch of yore – is something which has divided opinion and even, perhaps, defied description. Some refer to it as a crossover/SUV, but in truth it is neither. In fact, it looks more like an old-style estate than anything. What it is, in fact, is different – vive la. While Peugeot was always at the thick end of the design stick, this time it has surpassed itself. Of the mainstream mass manufacturers, the French company has aways provided us with a few visual tricks to entertain us. Back in 2016 when it launched the 3008 (an SUV), Peugeot started reconstructing its corporate design language, but it has always had the knack of making small design cues seem impossibly sophisticated and chic. I mean the ‘lion’s claw’ strip lights on the front bumper of so many of the company’s products aren’t a technological thing of wonder by any measure, but they do give the cars a unique and stand-out road presence. It’s the same here, as they have instituted a couple of design cues on the 408 that really do give it presence. The grille, for example, has the new company logo front and centre but what surrounds it is a thing of visual effervescence (on the GT models only), shimmering as it does in almost any light The version on the basic models is not so eye-catching, but it still stands the car out from the crowd. There are plenty of swooping lines down the flanks, while the sharply raked roof and the bulging rear wings give off a sporty feel that the car itself doesn’t necessarily merit. The only bugbear really is the massive black plastic rear bumper which sort of lets the whole visual extravagance down a bit. No doubt, Peugeot has gone for broke to make this a stand-out and they’ve largely done a good job and I can certainly see a situation whereby – and aside altogether from the cars undoubted practicality – people are attracted simply because it is so different. The interior too will be a talking point for anyone looking to outdo Mr Smith next door in his Corolla – or RAV4, for that matter. Although largely aped from the new 308 hatch and wagon, that is not a bad thing. The design was actually created for this car, but was fitted to the 308 first. The digital instrumentation and infotainment systems are great in themselves, but there is at least unconjoined climate controls which are not a distraction to use when driving. The whole layout, in fact, is very modern, well-built and enjoys excellently tactile surfaces and the seats – quelle surprise – are as comfortable as you find anywhere. That raked roof is slightly problematic for tall folk sitting in the rear seats, but legroom is impressively vast. So too the boot, which is huge. Well, it is in the petrol version because it is unsuited by all the hybrid stuff that’s in the other car. Accommodating the batteries reduces the petrol version’s 536 litres of available space to 471, but that is still more than most SUVs. And so, back to the engine choices. Now it may be something of a surprise to some that if I were offered the choice between the small turbocharged 1.2 four-pot with 130 bhp and the 225 bhp 1.6 PHEV, I’d be siding with the lesser of the two. You might suspect that the larger and more powerful unit would be an obvious choice, but the performance gap is not that much different between the two, especially as the GT is carrying around nearly 300kg more in weight because of the batteries. The price difference between the two is also significant. The smaller engine is not desperately swift – 11.2 seconds 0-100 km/h and top speed of 210 km/h – but the bigger one is not rabidly quicker either with a 0-100 km/h time of 7.8 seconds and a top speed of 233 km/h. Sure there is a performance gap, but the thing I found was that when you were driving the former, you didn’t miss what the latter offers. An excellent eight speed ‘box is common to both, but I’d take the little petrol and its 5.9 l/100 km (48 mpg) over the PHEV and its’ 65 km all-electric range. On the road both cars demonstrate sweet riding characteristics and are not at all perturbed by the Irish road network and the refined suspension is bolstered by neat handling. This is a very different – vive la – car and what Peugeot is doing here is being different, not just for the sake of it but because in their wisdom, they sense the mood of the public changing and can foresee a move away from the SUV-it is which has gripped the motoring public for so long now. Some may loathe the design, while others will love it, but at east what Peugeot (and Citroen, to be fair) are doing here is standing themselves out from the pack and that’s never a bad thing. | |