Road Test
Peugeot 308 1.6 VTi 120 Sport
Test date 17 October 2007
Price as tested £15,395
For Class-leading cabin and boot space, improved interior finish, refinement
AgainstFussy styling, unengaging handling and crude ride, imprecise gearchange
There has been a mid-size Peugeot with a ‘3’ in its title since 1933, when Peugeot unveiled the 301, complete with independent front suspension.
In 1936 the 302 was introduced but the trail goes cold during and following alterations to the map of Europe and Peugeot didn’t introduce another ‘3’ car until the late 1960s, when the range was into ‘4’ generation.
Dutifully the 305 followed, but then in 1986 Peugeot released the 309 (the only model in the range to then go to ‘9’), but replaced that with the 306, 307 and now 308.
The new Peugeot 308 has landed in a hot market sector. That perennial favourite, the Ford Focus, is about to be updated. Vauxhall’s Astra already has been and the VW Golf may be tweaked in 2008. Toyota’s Auris is still a fledgling (if boring) entry, as is the interesting Nissan Qashqai.
And those are just the cars from the old guard. More significant still is the arrival of excellent new opposition such as the Hyundai i30 and Kia Cee’d, and no matter how peripheral those manufacturers are you can’t ignore respective five-year or seven-year warranties.
Essentially, Peugeot finds itself launching the first of its ‘8’-monikered cars at a segment more crowded than ever with cars that are, frankly, massively more competent than they’ve ever been before. Traditionally, small Peugeot family cars have sold well against perhaps half a dozen mainstream competitors because they’ve been pretty, have driven quite well and come from a well known and trusted manufacturer. The new 308 will have to do all of that and also rather a lot more besides.
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