Peugeot 308 SW review

A breath of fresh air. You’ll surely be familiar with Peugeot’s ‘i-Cockpit’ interior by now, with its small steering wheel and high-mounted instrument cluster viewed over the top of the wheel. It takes some getting used to, but there’s no doubt that the cabin environment is as striking as anything else out there.

On GT and GT Premium Lines you get a 3D ‘floating’ instrument cluster as standard, which projects speed just that bit more prominently than, say, revs or fuel. It looks and work superbly, and the whole lot can be endlessly configured to suit. 

What's the infotainment like?

Refreshingly free of frustration. You get a crystal clear 10-inch screen as standard, and from Allure trim upwards, a handy row of customisable ‘i-Toggle’ shortcut buttons underneath to help you navigate around. It needs to be seen to be believed, but think of it like Apple’s Touch Bar, allowing you to easily navigate to your media, climate controls, navigation and more, with a handy home button to return to the main screen. Just a shame it’s so prone to fingerprints.

Peugeot’s trademark ‘piano key’ controls remain, though now feature a cleaner design that’s slightly less polarising than old. There’s also voice activation, wireless screen mirroring, and two phones can be connected to the Bluetooth simultaneously. Top-of-the-range models get a 10-speaker set-up, courtesy of French specialists Focal, if that’s your jam.

Can the boot fit the kitchen sink?

The SW can swallow 608 litres and 1,634 with the seats folded (the hybrid sacrifices 60 litres for the internal gubbins), and a two-position boot floor for additional versatility. That compares to 608/1,653 in the Ford Focus, 611/1,642 in the Volkswagen Golf and 640/1,700 in the Skoda Octavia. 

Rear seat space is a little disappointing, but the seats themselves split 40/20/40, with space for loads up to 1.85m long. Go for the GT Premium spec and you get an auto tailgate, which activates if you do one of those weird foot sweeping jigs under the rear bumper. Or push the key fob if you have a hand free.