Peugeot 208 - long-term review

What with COVID lockdowns, working from home, and the general brouhaha don’t-touch-that nightmare of 2020, the hi-vis 208 didn’t rack up the miles like it would’ve done during ‘peacetime’. It earned its keep on short journeys. Those little trips that make up – according to every survey explaining why EVs are a good thing – 90 per cent of British drives. Lazy little hops, basically.

Two miles here to collect my other half from the train station. Five miles there for our weekly socially distanced grocery shop. An eight-mile venture to an outdoor beauty spot for a weekend stroll felt like some sort of glorious, intrepid Star Trek odyssey into the unknown, even if it was actually just around Hertfordshire. But, I came to realise, this is the usage pattern that suits the 208, and its freaky design.

For a short hit, it’s a fun place to be. Familiarity starts to breed contempt with this interior. Spend longer than 20 minutes in the saddle and I start to cramp up from the long arm / short leg driving position. I genuinely started to go about my errands with a coat on even in mild weather simply to avoid bothering with the touchscreen heater-air-con menu. Life’s too short. Could be shorter if you get too distracted by tap-tap-tapping on the bloody monitor.

If the 208 had been on more motorway duties, it’d have averaged higher 40s to the gallon, I’m sure of it. I’d have been less perturbed by its flat-footed response to bumps around town – this is a supermini that likes a decent-speed cruise. It’s much more mature than any Peugeot supermini to date. It’s more like a shrunken Mercedes E-Class than a Mini rival.

Then again, you can’t spot oglers on the motorway. In town, the 208 turned heads like no supermini I’ve ever come across. If you want attention, buy this, not an Audi A1 or a Mini. Obviously dandelion yellow paint which pinged in the summer sunshine helped, but the 208’s fabulous proportions, neat detailing and confident yet unfussy look magnetised the attention of the British public as it stumbled blinking back out into the daylight in search of a beer garden and a snog.

So, some housekeeping. Nothing broke, nothing went wrong, nothing fell off or rattled. The touchscreen didn’t even crash, which shows improvement over my old Citroen C3 long-termer from three years ago which ran an older version of this system and used to, ironically, freeze in warm weather. The piano-black trim inside didn’t scratch as badly as I’d feared, and the floor mats weren’t bobbly after a couple of thousand miles. Sounds obvious, but it’s not a given these days. I once spent a few months living with a Honda Civic and its carpets basically dissolved in the wet.

Tyre wear wasn’t a worry, the 1.2-litre engine didn’t consume any oil, and besides the usual Peugeot bugbears of lazy keyless start and bonkers automatic wipers, none of the 208’s on-board tech played up at all. So can we please draw a line under the ‘French cars are all made of tissue paper and broken promises’ schtick now? None of the last couple of Citroens, Peugeots or Renaults we’ve housed in the Top Gear Garage have been fragile, Not compared to, say, the Jaguars and Mercedes we’ve tested.

And here, in case you were keeping count, comes the ‘but'.

Because how a car drives matters more to my nerd brain than how it looks, and because I’d rather have an outstanding gearshift than stand-out styling, my supermini of choice – and Top Gear’s – is the Ford Fiesta. I drove one recently with the new hybrid boost and was reminded what an outstandingly vice-free car it is. Besides stupidly small door mirrors, it’s pretty much perfect – more spacious than the Peugeot as well as a sweeter drive.

But I’ve come to understand, from living with the 208 and seeing the public’s response to it, how they coo over it when it’s parked and recoil in shock when they note the badge – that a growing number of people don’t want the same car everyone else has, regardless of whether it’s the best in class or not. They want a statement.

That explains the rise of crossovers – we want something that says we’re a bit independent, a bit adventurous. That audience will find life more comfortable in the 208 than I did. If Peugeot can just rationalise the cabin a smidge come facelift o’clock, this car will ask very serious questions of a VW Polo, Seat Ibiza and Audi A1.