TMW - The Peugeot 2008 Allure 1.2 litre, a crossover for all occasions, and one thats going to be hard to beat !

When Peugeot hit its bad period, they had a choice, either wait out the sales slump, and hope that they would come out the other side in a better position than before it hit, or, they would spend themselves out of trouble, and spend is what they did. 

Billions of Euros were spent to produce the best and most modern range of cars they have ever had, the 108 is undoubtedly one of the best small cars around, the 208 is again one of the best Supermini, the 308, is a brilliant car, we have tested two of them here on the Blog and came away mightily impressed, and then there was the all new model that pushed Peugeot into the compact crossover segment, and they did this with the 2008.

The 2008 is the model we are testing here, and it is the new facelifted version too, it is easily understandable that the 2008 has been a huge hit for Peugeot, appearing frequently in the European top sellers chart*, along with the 208 and 308. The two plans put in place by the big bosses at Peugeot have worked, sales are up, expenditure down, turnover and profits are all back in significant numbers, and this is just the start.

The car we are testing here today, is the Peugeot 2008 Allure 1.2 Litre 110 S/S, a mouthful I know, but this is a brilliant car, you get plenty of room up front, and with the i-Cockpit set up the steering wheel is away from your legs, and you still get a good view of the dials in front of you, and the road ahead, without the need to continually take your eyes away from the road.

The seats are seriously supportive, with very large side bolsters on the seat and the back, so no matter how hard you drive the car, you will always remain in place, once you get yourself comfortable, you find that everything is easily to hand, and if you have driven a 208, you will be very familiar with the central switchgear and touchscreen system, which, like all cars with the PSA Group is very easy to work out and understand, we personally own a C4 Cactus, so, the touchscreen was really simple to operate. but is also different, it seems to have a little more quality about it, and it's quicker than the Citroen version, now whether thats just me or there is a difference I am not sure, but it came across as faster.

The rear seats can feel a little hemmed in, if you have the front seats all the way back, but in a decent position you can fit a family in the back in reasonable comfort, or two adults, three larger adults and it would feel a bit squashed, the boot space is big, it can take a very large weekly shop, or with the seats down, you can take larger pieces of furniture with ease, if thats what you like to carry around, there is plenty of cubby spaces dotted about, with one covered cubby by the hand brake, which is like the speed handle on a jet fighter, you grab it with your hand rather than push a button in the end and drop it down, Cactus owners have something similar, and i really like this a lot, it makes a nice difference.

The 1.2 Litre 3-Cylinder engine likes to be revved, and revved hard, to get it going, but it will lose speed on an incline, so you do need to keep aware of your speed and feather the accelerator to keep your speed up, likewise I noticed that the MPG on the digital dash, was very active when going up and down hills, even after a long journey, you did notice the mpg rise and fall significantly, but I did manage to get a good overall mpg during the week of mid 50's, which for a car with a small engine is really quite good, the only down side, well, two really, is the engine is only a Euro 5 and it runs a five speed manual gearbox, I did feel that on occasions it could have done with another gear, and with Euro 5 engines soon to be obsolete, I thought it would have been ideal to have an EU 6 compliant engine on the facelifted car, giving it an all fresh model,

That said, the car runs at 103g/km which for a car of this size is very good, it also runs nicely at the national speed limit and can, where allowed, take you onto a top speed of 119 mph, added to which the fuel consumption figures as stated by Peugeot are

• Urban 53.3mpg
• Extra-Urban 72.4mpg
• Combined 64.2mpg

Very good numbers, and ones that you can get very close too, which is a nice change, I have been in cars that state one figure and produce numbers upto 40% less, which is a little deceptive, fortunately that vehicle was NOT one of the PSA Group cars.

The 2008 is priced keenly, with this model coming in at £18,070, and this is boosted with a number of optional extra's fitted :-

• Varnish Paint - £645
• Active City Brake - £250
• Park Assist (Auto Parallel Parking System & Reversing Camera) - £500
• Cielo Panoramic Glass Roof - £400
• Satellite navigation & Connect SOS & Assistance - £700

This takes the car to over £20,500, but you are still getting a great car, with loads of kit for that money, it also now comes with grip control, which gives the car the added advantage of being able to cope with various styles of ground, sand, mud, snow etc, and it works really well too, i tried it on sand and it did cope quite well, not, as great as a full on four wheel drive, but it will get you out of trouble if you find yourself in that style of ground that can bog you down.

The Allure trim level is probably the one to go for, it has the vast majority of the kit that most people need on a day to day basis, and with this trim level you get :-

• Rear Parking Aid
• Tinted Rear/Side Windows
• One Touch all Round Windows
• Auto Lights
• Auto Wipers
• Grip Control
• Auto Dual Zone Air Conditioning
• Cornering Assist Fog Lights
• Leather Trimmed Steering Wheel

And thats just a small amount of the equipment thats fitted to this car as standard, and thats why it makes this car a brilliant one to own, it drives really well, it is very quiet until you give the engine those revs that it needs to keep it going, but the engine note is very nice, it sounds quite peppy, and sporty, and it picks up speed quite quickly, it can equally slow or stop as quickly, with great brakes, fling it around corners and you would be forgiven for thinking you will lose control of the car, but again it scores well here, it, like the 308 we tested earlier, just grips to the road, and that is perfect behaviour for this crossover, that thinks it is a sports car.

You think that you will climb into the car, like an SUV, but you dont, it is roughly the same height seat wise as a normal car, but the height of the car gives you added headroom, and the hints that this is a bigger car than it is, and these days thats a difficult thing to do, make a car seems bigger than it is, but still have all that room, TARDIS comes to mind.

VERDICT

This is a great car that can cope with so many different aspects of day to day living, it is a brilliant family car, it is a big load lugger, its dynamic driving style is a hard one to beat in this class, you feel you are in a more superior vehicle, it has so much room, and everything is near and handy, as well as easy to use, this is one car that I would be happy to own, to invest my own money into, and it is one that I can see me keeping for some time, it really is a car that can cope with all you can throw at it, and it is no surprise that Peugeot has a huge hit on it's hands, and for them to do it first time out shows how the teams behind the design of Peugeots model ranges are so on the mark.

*Figures from JATO Dynamics

The Motoring World Blog
Jon Mower