Peugeot’s baby SUV grows up
Peugeot’s new and improved 2008 squares up to take on the hyper-competitive baby SUV segment, writes
When it launched in 2014 Peugeot’s 2008 small SUV was interesting, but flawed, with a decent 1.6-litre engine, but an old and clunky four-speed automatic transmission holding it back. A facelift in 2017 added the brilliant 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo engine and a six-speed auto, but nobody really noticed, which was a shame, because it was a good little thing. But now there is an all new one, and you can’t help but notice it.
Peugeot has gone all out on the new generation 2008 and the small 208 hatch that it shares a platform with, and there is no better evidence of that than that platform, designed from the ground up to be powered by a range of drivetrains including, of course, electric, the powertrain that will dominate the future. Or not, depending on your point of view.
Regardless of that, offering a choice of powertrains is Peugeot’s plotted path to the future, with the option of electric, petrol or diesel in the same car, rather than dedicated electric models.
Except in New Zealand – we won’t be seeing the diesel here – so it will just be a choice of petrol or electric. Although not quite yet – Peugeot’s local distributor, Auto Distributors New Zealand, is in the final stages of evaluating the all-electric version, with the hopes of seeing it here before the end of the year.
So for now we will be seeing two petrol variants landing here in July, both powered by the latest version of Peugeot’s excellent 1.2-litre threecylinder turbo engine in two states of tune – a 96kW/230Nm version in the Allure model and a 115kW/240Nm interior advances Peugeot’s ‘‘i-Cockpit’’ design with a new 3D display that, while initially seeming gimmicky, works wonderfully well by bringing the information you actually need to the front of the display. It is difficult to effectively describe it and all but impossibly to show in photos, but the overall effect is both stunning and remarkably functional.
At the international launch in the south of France, where the narrow chip-seal winding back roads were not entirely unlike those in New Zealand.
Here the refinement and surprising silence of the 2008 shone through strongly. Because the new platform has effectively been designed as an EV first and foremost, the combustion-engine models benefit from the extra effort put into sound proofing and isolation necessary for EVs.
This gives the 2008 the sort of refinement usually not seen in cars of its size and this, combined with the remarkably high quality interior makes it feel much more expensive than the $35,000 starting price that Auto Distributors NZ is aiming for, meaning that the 2008 will also share the 508s impressive ability to offer BMW/Audi/ Mercedes-Benz-like levels of quality and equipment at a significantly lower price point.