Peugeot 3008 review

This is a very smartly furnished cockpit, with neat cloth, metallic and stitched finishes, and a 21in panoramic curved double screen that's mounted on a hidden arm so ambient light looms from behind it. The air vents also sit away from the dash - sorta Pagani-lite.

The overall dash architecture manages to be unusual and striking, yet it's still easy to use. In many ways easier than conventional designs.

As usual for a Peugeot the steering wheel is small and you get sight of the instrument screen over the top of its rim. In smaller cars such as the 208 this annoys some people who like the wheel high, or the backrest reclined, and can't see the instruments. But this is a crossover so you'll be sitting high anyway, so nearly everyone will be fine.

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE TOUCHSCREEN.

The driver screen has the usual options: speed, map, trip computer, music, driver assist view. The central screen does what central screens normally do: a tiled and configurable view of climate and infotainment plus controls for assisted driving and general setup.

Peugeot's killer app is something called i-Toggles, a set of icons on a third, shallow and wide screen above the console. These icons are user-choosable, so you can set shortcuts to 10 things you use a lot: additional climate settings, the surround camera, fave radio stations, frequent navigation destinations or phone mirroring or seat heating.

HOW'S THE SPACE?

Not brilliant out the back. The front seats are gorgeous, thick and supportive. But they steal a certain amount of knee and foot space from the people behind. Noticeable because this is a relatively short car by class standards.

At least the boot is a good size, both in depth and height, and amounts to 520 litres. That’s more than a Nissan Qashqai, but smaller than a Kia Sportage and Ford Kuga, in that order. And the fastback means that even without the parcel shelf, really bulky cuboid objects won't fit under the tailgate.