The 205. The 306. Two reasons, you could argue, to pity Peugeot today and why the 208 has so much to live up to. With hits like that in its back catalogue, is it any wonder that its latest chart entries fail to scale the same giddy heights? Those heights aren’t necessarily defined by sales, but by lasting affection and identity.
In other words, by what they mean to enthusiasts.
When was the last time that a Peugeot gave you ‘the drive of your life’, as one of the French car maker’s advertising tag lines once promised?
Our guess would be the late 1990s, when Peugeot seemingly handed Ford the right to make the most entertaining ‘normal’ cars in Europe and gave us instead the 1007, 206 and 307. The Peugeot 207, it’s fair to say, was even worse than the 206.
Recently, Peugeot has had better times. So here we are, with a replacement for the 207, on the back of some moderately entertaining, engaging family cars that show genuine promise.
If the 208 can recapture a little of the original spirit, this could be Peugeot’s best small car for a generation. We’ll see.
