Hallelujah: Peugeot’s latest car really, truly makes sense
OK, I’m going to come clean. I distrust crossover cars, or crossover utility vehicles (CUVs). In the past when I’ve driven them I’ve tended not to like them. Neither one thing or another, they have always seemed to me to be the mongrels of the car world, compromised and with an identity crisis. Despite a promise of combining the best advantages of different categories of vehicles they often seem to end up doing nothing particularly well.
I mean, in the cold light of day,
why would I want an SUV that’s also an MPV that’s also a hatchback? Are these not cars for the chronically indecisive?
Yet actually after a week driving one I’ve just discovered who these cars are for.
Me.
Or at least people like me. Who knew? And it’s not as if your first look at the Peugeot 3008 promises much. It isn’t ugly, but it’s hardly a looker. It even looks like an automotive mix-up of SUV and hatchback. I am largely indifferent to its styling. I expect to feel the same way about the car. It’s not a great start.
Yet once inside, the 3008 is impressive. The interior quality is surprisingly good, a combination of leather, high quality plastics and silver for switchgear and decoration. The car is very comfortable and surprisingly roomy for everyone except the driver. Space here is a little compromised due to the driver-orientated cockpit which succeeds well enough in placing all of the controls and switchgear within reach. The result feels snug. And you sit high up, like you do in an SUV, and thanks to so much glass the car is light and airy and affords loads of visibility.
The 3008 also has a Grip Control system which allows you to change the car’s grip for a range of driving conditions – such as snows, ice, sand and mud. It’s a safety feature and combined with the tow bar that sits at the back of our test car, it’s quite clear that Peugeot expects the car to be popular with caravaners. The Grip Control dial occupies a similar location as BMW and Audi’s MMI systems. I immediately try to tune the radio. Instead I change the car’s set-up to “drive on sand”. The ease of reaching these controls seems counter-intuitive as logically I am going to want to access the audio controls about a 100 times more often than the ones that change the drive setup. Meanwhile, the audio controls sit in front of the gear shift. I immediately want to transpose them. I wonder if I will be the only driver of this car that is annoyed by this. Still, it is the only complaint I have. The front seat passenger gets a rugged grab handle to underline the SUV genes at the heart of the drive system. It seems unlikely that they will need it very often.
This 3008’s 150bhp Hdi diesel engine feels delightfully powerful and quick and is surprisingly quiet at speed (if not around town), yet it remains economical enough to feel like a sensible option. In short, it’s a car that can please your head as well as your heart.
There are two areas where the 3008 is just marvellous. One is the car’s handling. How can this be, that a car this practical can also be enjoyable? Is it some kind of motoring alchemy? In fact, it’s due to some clever shock absorbers in the rear suspension which ensure the car is taut so that there is little body roll, making it genuinely fun to drive. It gives the 3008 far more of a hot hatch feel than an SUV ride.
The other is the boot. Who knew a boot could be this impressive? It swallows all of our stuff and then offers up a second floor. Fantastic: a multi-story boot. Its false floor can be set to different heights while a split tailgate ensures you can still access its contents. It’s even got those springy nets that stop bottles of wine from rolling around. Shock, horror: the boot has been designed to actually carry real world things. People at Peugeot scratched their heads and found solutions to how people actually use their cars – and it shows.
The boot stowage is a revelation. Having a young family, we were inches away from signing up and buying one immediately. It felt like the car had been designed exactly to address our needs right down to the built-in blinds to keep the sun out of the baby’s eyes. The Peugeot 3008 is targeted so accurately at the family market it scores a bullseye.