Currently reading: 'Peugeots have lost their beauty'
New design boss admits last alluring Peugeot went on sale in 1996

Peugeot needs to go back to making beautiful and desirable cars again, according to the company’s new design boss Jean-Pierre Ploue.

Ploue, recently promoted from Citroen to be in charge of all PSA design, told Autocar that he was working on a strategy to revolutionise the look of future Peugeots.

"We need more athletic looking Peugeots and they need to be alluring," he said.

He also admitted that the last Peugeot to reflect this was the 1996 Peugeot Coupe, designed by Pininfarina. However, he claimed that such future work could be done in-house.

Ploue also revealed that a show car illustrating his new design language for the French brand would be coming with the next few months. Peugeot insiders have tipped it to co-incide with the company’s 200th anniversary in 2010.

However, the first Ploue influenced production car is likely to be the next generation supermini, the 208, due in 2011.

Chas Hallett

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Lee23404 16 September 2009

Re: 'Peugeots have lost their beauty'

jonfortwo wrote:

So styling and quality please PSA.

You've obviously not seen/driven one of the latest crop of Citroens then.

As for Peugeot I have to agree with what most others have said of the recent styling. Ugly and derivitive. I thought the front of the 308 was bad until I saw the rear the estate version.

One of my biggest motoring regrets is that I never owned a 306. Every time I drove one I was blown away with how good they are. Sadly they're all too old for my needs now.

pdmc 16 September 2009

Re: 'Peugeots have lost their beauty'

Peugeots haven't just lost their beauty though. Its worse than that. They've lost their joie de vivre and dynamism for which they were once renowned. The superlative ride and handling balance that defined their cars for generations has been lost. I recently drove a 307 1.4 HDi in France. It had punchy performance, but other than that it was completely unremarkable. I fear that they have chosen to engineer out the superb handling characteristics of their cars to appease the more reserved drivers who didn't much car for engaging drivers cars. This is so far from Peugeots of old which were sold almost entirely on their handling capabilities. Does anyone else remember the tv commercials for the 405 which touted its "unique ICD road handling system" ? (ICD = Integrated Chassis Design) They have also dumbed down their cars handling and increased their weight in pursuit of those NCAP stars which the brand previously struggled to attain. Their cars are not only too nose heavy (for pedestrian & frontal impact crash test reasons), they are also too heavy to be agile and because of their absurd proportions, are ultimately too contrived in their overall styling. Where is the purity of form, simplicity and neat detailing of the 205, 405, 306, 406 etc? What happened to that? Peugeot has completely lost its way in a manner similar to Citroen around the time they launched the dreadfully vanilla Xsara. The handling of modern Peugeots feels far more inert than those of old. Peugeot was once one of my favourite car brands up there with Alfa Romeo, simply because their cars were a scream to drive. My first car was a 405 GRi 1.9 petrol. It was a very accomplished driver's car. There's not a hope you'd get me to buy a 407 now. Its not hideous, but it is all wrong. The nose is overly long, the wheel base consequently looks too short and the tail is stubby. The cab is too far forward without lending any useful interior space unless you use your dashboard as shelving space and parking the thing must be like pinning the tail on the donkey. In short its profile is too much like that awful original Citroen C5. So Peugeot should not just worry about their cars styling and making them pretty again... First and foremost they ought to worry because the handling and excitement is just not there. Secondly, because it was a bad idea for the brand to hinge every car it designed since the 206 on the design cues of a supermini. Thirdly, they need to outsource their styling to Pininfarina once again because plainly on the present evidence - even including their latest concepts and design studies - they haven't a prayer of pulling off a successful design 'inhouse' any time soon. Memo to Peugeot: build an elegant and gorgeous 4 door sedan to replace the 407 or indeed the 607 if you're feeling brave enough, and then leverage the design cues of THAT CAR to inspire the look of the rest of the range. Rather than applying the mpv like proportions of a hatchback to the entire range and hoping that no one will notice. Thats just stupid.

sidevalve 16 September 2009

Re: 'Peugeots have lost their beauty'

tannedbaldhead wrote:
My first ever company car was a 306 XND. It was a base model, normally asperated, 1.9 diesel but was miles ahead of the Golf, Escort, Astra, 19, and Tipo of the day as far as handling, ride, refinement and performance were concerned.

The bloke who works with me has a 306 XNd that used to belong to a friend's wife, and my wife has a VW Beetle Diesel. The 306 is way, way ahead of the Beetle on virtually every count (refinement, steering quality, ride, handling, fuel economy), and I personally love its level of performance, because I can drive it briskly, keep out of trouble, and I always find that I am not going as fast as I think I am (this is way better than the other way round, cos it is more fun).

And the current crop of Peugeots have got to be the ugliest cars on earth. They have got a nose like Sarkozy!! Who on Earth signed them off? The 306 is so clean and neat compared with them that I can't believe they can have lost their way to such an extent. And as for the 308 Estate - it has got to be the ugliest car ever made, let alone the ugliest of the current crop. I would say the back of it was like the back end of a bus, but that's an insult to buses.