Peugeot 508 PSE SW - long-term review

Peugeots look good now, which hadn’t been true for a generation of cars. The first 508 that arrived back in 2010 wasn’t, let’s say ‘particularly easy on the eye’, which made it all the more surprising when Peugeot seemingly leaped a chasm of styling choices in a single bound and launched this lovely second-generation car.

It’s a smart design, only enhanced by the estate guise – or ‘SW’ as Peugeot calls it – that TG is currently running. The distinctive lines seem to fit the booted 508 just that little bit more. Long story short, facing a 500-odd mile trip to the Lake District and back, I wanted to, let’s say ‘further investigate the charms’ of this delightful design. Definitely not because BabyCar – TG’s long-term electric Fiat 500 – would have needed a few long-winded charging stops along the way.

So, humans and Retriever packed into the 508 – boasting a boot with 530 litres of capacity with the seats folded up! – we embarked on our odyssey up North. A few things became immediately clear. One: the driving position remains comically eccentric. You have to either sit super low and jack the steering wheel height up, or vice versa (sit high, wheel low) to stand any chance of properly viewing the dash. I opted for the latter.

Second, the ride is good, but I found it to be a touch busier on a long-haul; a tad more fidgety, even in Comfort mode, than you’d like. But then it’s going up against German competitors, and of course boasts 20in alloys and a suspension setup that’s 50 per cent stiffer than a standard 508. Not a dealbreaker – or backbreaker – but something to note.

But what I really wasn’t prepared for was point three – the admiration thrown the 508’s way. Some anecdotes: a couple of young gentlemen leapt out of a C-Class while at a petrol station specifically to pore over the PSE’s details. “Is that a Peugeot?” one asked, a little too enthusiastically. I nodded. “That looks great,” he said, yet more enthusiastically.

At another service stop further up the motorway, the same routine – lots of stares, a few points of the finger, even a thumbs up – basically the kind of fare usually reserved for those piloting supercars or much-loved classics.

One wonders if there’s a deeper level to this; that because the 508 PSE is not an uber-aggressive German wagon with a gazillion horsepower, it’s somehow more appealing. That because it’s rarer (though we spotted one in the exact same spec as ours lurking in a Windermere car park), and less seen, and because it doesn’t shout its prowess (the most powerful road-going Peugeot ever built with 355bhp, don’t forget), it’s somehow cooler.

Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a Peugeot that looks good now.