Does my boot look big in this?

Peugeot’s new saloon is a hit and the MPV has promise too

IS it a resurrection? Well, that remains to be seen, but if anyone is going to bring the moribund large saloon segment back to life, you’d have to think Peugeot has the best shot. The move to SUV and crossover bodystyles has, to date, been unstoppable, but I’ve seen me-too fatigue in the car market before, and the time might have arrived for us to look once again at what used to thrill us back in the day.

To lure us, Peugeot has ripped up the rule book, lowering and shortening the 508 from its previous incarnation, when other carmakers usually make the next generation bigger. Also gone is the traditional saloon look, and in its place comes a coupé-style fastback design with a longer bonnet, and a more streamlined cabin. Throw in the best designed rear end of any saloon I can remember, and a chequerboard grille up front, and what Peugeot has delivered is little short of miraculous, a truly beautiful car.

‘To get such proportions when the length had been reduced by eight centimetres compared to the previous generation, we moved the glazing support back to give the car a larger bonnet,’ says design director Pierre-Paul Mattei. ‘Then there’s the frameless-door technology, which meant we could reduce the vehicle’s height in relation to the car’s rivals in the segment. That also makes the vehicle appear especially wide even though it actually has a rather average width.’

UP FRONT, there are full LED headlights. The Peugeot lion sits in the centre of the grille, and the number 508 appears on the nose of the bonnet. At the back, between the rear lights, is the now familiar Peugeot glossy black horizontal strip, and there are three-dimensional full LED rear lights in the lion’s claw pattern.

Inside, all is familiar from the 3008 and 5008. You get that compact multi-function steering wheel and the iCockpit, the virtual display that is best in class to my mind. Here, the infotainment screen is angled towards the driver, and it’s the only thing I slightly take issue with, in that its 8:3 ratio makes it look just a little too small. Peugeot also has stuck with the climate control on screen, when manual dials are more intuitive to use, and certainly less distracting while you’re driving.

One of the cars I drove came with a Focal stereo system that was brilliant, perfectly matching bass and treble for any type of music, and it added oomph to what really is an extraordinary cabin, one that shows just how committed Peugeot is to moving the brand upmarket. Here, it has BMW, Audi and Mercedes in its sights, and where once that might have seemed laughably deluded, it now makes perfect sense.

Under the bonnet, there are two new 1.6litre petrol engines, putting out 180 and 225hp respectively, and four diesels, either 1.5 or 1.8-litre, with outputs between 130 and 180hp. As I’ve told you before, I’m always suspicious when carmakers hold European launches in areas with little in the way of hills; that usually signifies a lack of confidence in the car’s ability to tackle the gradients and hairpins posed by trickier terrain. Peugeot clearly had no such concerns, and from the launch base in Monaco, we drove high into the low Alps of southern France, along twisting gorge roads with precipitous drops to the side, and around hairpin bends that would test the turning circle of a toy car, never mind a real one. The drive felt taut and dynamic, and in the 225hp GT, with a 0-100km/h of 8.1 seconds, a lot of fun too.

Peugeot also launched the Rifter, the new van-derived multi-purpose vehicle to replace the Partner Tepee. Remember MPVs, or people carriers as they used to be called? They were all the rage in the early Noughties before they too fell foul of SUV dominance. I’m less sure the time is right for an MPV resurrection, and despite a valiant effort to make the car look aggressive, an MPV still is a box on wheels. Not to my taste, maybe, but there are many parents who will love its practicality, and the longwheelbase option turns the five-seater into a seven-seater, with easy sliding door access, making it an obvious choice for larger families.

I found the casing between driver and passenger too wide for comfort, and my knee chafed against it when driving and navigating, but that might just be down to the posture I tend to adopt while driving (in public, I believe it’s called manspreading), and familiarity no doubt might retrain me in my behaviour.

I salute Peugeot for bravery on both fronts, though. It already has three of the best crossovers on the market with the 2008, 3008 and 5008. If the magic stick is going to work on a large saloon and a new MPV, it’s sure to be the French wielding it.

Both cars arrive here at the end of the year for 191 registration and pricing has yet to be confirmed.

For now, if you think you might buy in January, I can’t recommend the 508 highly enough. I loved it.