PEUGEOT 607 FELINE, 2000
Concept cars are supposed to be forwardthinking, but Peugeot invented our kind of emotional support bubble back in 2000. The 607 Feline concept greeted the dawn of a new millennium at the Geneva show with a mindless gurning grin, debuting the beginnings of a new grille design for the French firm that paved the way for the likes of BMW to turn up to 11. It was framed by ginormo headlights that looked like they should have been able to challenge the sun for sheer lumens.
Unlike most concepts, which are revealed before a car is actually launched in order to tantalise you with an exotic attractive car that never turns out to be as stylish in production practice, the 607 Feline concept was revealed a number of months after the 607 went on sale. Maybe the designers were running a touch late because of the millennium bug or something. It went on display with the Paladine, another 607-based concept, this time a luxury limo.
The Feline got the French firm’s ES engine, a 2,946cc V6 originally co-developed with Renault and boosted by Porsche in 2000 to 204bhp. Fancy. It was mounted longitudinally behind the five-speed manual box in order to get the extreme wheel-at-each-corner look that gives the car its impressively sporty stance.
The remorselessly red interior was festooned with leather, yet enticingly minimalist by today’s standards – and did away with doors. That did pose issues with the whole ‘getting in and out’ thing, solved by the bodywork disappearing along the sides of the cabin, the windscreen moving 50cm forward over the bonnet and the rear window moving 12.5cm backwards over the rear deck. The cabin looked straight out of the Sixties Batman series. The pedals and steering wheel were adjustable for the driver, and there were even compartments to put your shoes in underneath the seat cushions if you wanted to keep the upholstery clean.
French carmakers have long persisted with their expensive giant limos and weird sports cars, but no one ever seems to buy them. The closest you could get to the two-seat 607 concept was the RCZ, a smaller, less ambitious but actually quite fun 2+2 that went on sale from 2009 to 2015 (and was TopGear’s Coupe of the Year in 2010, no less).
Maybe, with its two 607 concepts in sporty and luxurious guise, Peugeot was suggesting customers should get themselves a car that could do both. The obvious inference being that the new 607 was that car. Sadly, the buying public disagreed – traditionally the only people who purchase large Gallic saloons are the French government and Nineties action film directors. If the 607 had taken this form, though, we might just have been interested.