Hammond's icons: Peugeot 205 GTi

There are more clichés associated with this car than probably any other I’ve mentioned here before. And I shall try to avoid them all.

If there follows any nods toward Maggie, dodgy bands, greed is good, red braces or any other Eighties nonsense, I ask that somebody kick me in the face please. Because this page is all about legends, the cars that really stand out for what they are, what they could do, what they do to your soul. Or your trousers.

Words: Richard Hammond

Photography: Justin Leighton

This article originally appeared in the July 2012 edition of Top Gear magazine

The Peugeot 205 GTi was, and still is, a full-bore, gold-medal-winning legend. Simple. It doesn’t need contextualising with stuff about how good it was at the time, how far it advanced the concept
of small, affordable fast cars, or any of that. Just look at the thing – it’s gorgeous. You can see the design work seeping out of every little corner of its mouthwatering little frame. This is more than a few plastic pieces stuck on to a shopping car... the fundamental shape is stunning.

The pepper pot alloys are some of the prettiest wheels ever fitted to a car. As hatchbacks go, I would contend that none prettier has ever been made. The more aggressive stance of the GTi just makes it sweeter to stare at. Same inside – beautiful everywhere you look.

Let’s not get nostalgic about the cassette player and the half-leather seats, nostalgia is all about sinking into the past. There’s no need to do that here. The Pug isn’t just beautiful for its day, it is still a beautiful thing to look at now. Or at any time.

And beautiful to hear too. The little 1.6-litre four-pot fizzes and shouts, is always happy to rev hard and use its modest 115bhp to throw the tiny, 885kg car to 60mph in a respectable 8.7 seconds. And now, there’s another enormous cliché rearing up ahead like a moose in the road... that the 1.6 was always better than the more powerful 1.9-engined version.

Better-balanced, sweeter-revving, all of that. Well, there are those who disagree, who say the extra grunt of the larger engine, with its longer stroke, more than makes up for any low-speed trickiness with an increased sense of urgency and, yes, possibly of danger. Personally, I think the 1.6 probably was the sweeter... and there is something more appropriate about wringing the most from the
more modest engine.

Either way, whether 1.6 or 1.9, get the GTi in a feisty mood, and it offers huge, old-school hot-hatch fun of a kind you seldom get to have now. Anyone still unclear about what lift-off oversteer is and how it feels, absolutely needs to have a punt in one of these.

The steering wheel becomes pretty much redundant at times, with all steering done by your right foot;
a gentle lift into a corner makes a small slide, a more robust lift means a bigger slide and a renewed sense of purpose for the little steering wheel as it is employed to steady things down. It is completely addictive.

At least, it is on a track. On the road, such habits can be viewed as a little unruly and, yes, the bigger-engined car certainly earned a reputation for wasting the odd banker. 

The suspension set-up was, as everybody knew, pretty snazzy, with independent front and back. But it’s the lightness and the stance that make this thing such a bundle of joy.

There’s no way round it, I want one. As should you. It’s not some pampered classic, it’s not delicate or fragile, and neither will it be ruinous to run. It’s just far, far more fun than any modern hot hatch I can think of off the top of my head and, if the world were a fairer, more wonderful place, everyone between the ages of 17 and 22 would be issued with one as a matter of course.