Price £21,995
MPG 40.9
Top speed 143mph
Dr Vicki Melfi of Paignton zoo says you can read a monkey’s bottom like a traffic light – except in reverse. To them, red means don’t stop! And to make sure the males don’t, fertile females create an eye-catching display with their swollen and scarlet derrières. A little like what Peugeot has done with its new 208 GTi – the matte-black front half contrasting dramatically with the glossy rear end. I’d love to have caused chimpy chaos by driving it through the monkey enclosure at Longleat, to see what they made of it…
This hot hot-hatch is the 30th-anniversary version of Peugeot’s 208 GTi. It’s been created as an homage to the much-loved 205 GTi which still brings a gulp of nostalgia to the throat of anyone who came of age in the mid-80s. It was the red piping and rally-inspired mud flaps that always got me. Sadly, I never managed to get behind the wheel to relish the “legendary performance” everyone always banged on about (which sounds like one of those emails I keep getting these days promising a “Stronger boner and a stronger marriage”). But 30 years on, I have at last been able to put that right – about the car, at least.
You have been able to buy a regular 208 GTi for the past year or so, but for an extra £3,000 you can now upgrade to this anniversary model – a sort of collectors’ issue in car form.
After leaving the production line, the 208 GTi makes its way over to the in-house “speed tweakers” at Peugeot Sport. This department of auto-boffins then sets to work on your perfectly decent car and transforms it into something a little less refined and lot more fun.
It gets the simian paint job and is lowered on its suspension. It’s given wider and bigger wheels, too. To add to the growing sense of drama, flared chrome exhausts and red-brake callipers all make an appearance. Inside, there is more hotness. The gear knob becomes a sculpted aluminium affair; the instrument panel is outlined with a glowing red running line; the steering wheel is topped with a scarlet loop of stitched leather which nicely references the flickering needle points of the speedo and tachometer. Up front you sit coddled in a pair of bespoke bucket seats. They are really something. Imagine being held firmly in the palm of a giant suede-gloved hand. Well, that’s the feeling…
And so to that “legendary” GTi performance I’ve waited all this time to experience. The car has been fitted with a revised version of Peugeot’s award-winning turbocharged 1.6-litre engine which now produces a pleasingly literal 208bhp. Fire it up and it gurgles and throbs with intent. Hit the throttle and off you shoot.
The car handles itself in the same way you would if a team of experts had worked hard to get you into shape. It has swagger and a sense of entitlement. It looks fierce and uncompromising, and that’s exactly how it drives. Hammer into corners and it whips round them unflustered. Stretch it out on the open road and it laps it up, jumping from lane to lane with impunity. Basically, it’s a cocky little sod. Which in many ways is exactly what the 205 always was…
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166
Follow the Observer Magazine on Twitter @ObsMagazine
