Peugeot 208 GTI - The Lion Rediscovers Its Pride

Twenty years on, Peugeot’s 205 GTI is still a dynamic benchmark. They try a prototype of the new 208 GTI to see if the latest can challenge the greatest.

October 2012, Hertfordshire

A pub car park on a cold, damp Friday morning is not where you’d expect to meet Peugeot’s head of chassis engineering, or its head of marketing. But they’re here because the Peugeot 208 has just been launched, and a GTI version is coming.

Its two predecessors, the 206 and 207 GTIs, were not great cars. The magic of their 205 GTI ancestor, the way it and its driver could bond, was conspicuously absent. They were sales flops and hastened the crumbling of Peugeot’s reputation for fabulous driving machines. The 208 GTI, on sale in April, must reignite the flame.

Peugeot 208 GTI - The Lion Rediscovers Its Pride

So we’ve gathered engineer Gaëtan Demoulin and marketeer Laurent Blanchet to try UK roads and compare the briskest current 208 (the 154bhp THP) with its Mini Cooper S and Ford Fiesta Metal rivals. And, vitally, to put them in a 205 GTI 1.9 - mine and the winner of our Hot Hatch World Cup last December to see how much of it they recognize in their new creation.

We’ve spent the morning driving; now to compare notes. Straight to the 205. Are we about to see the storied French hot hatch reincarnated?         

“We have to be careful about the safety aspect,” Demoulin ventures, “and it would be impossible to make a car like this.” That doesn’t sound promising. “The tests we have to pass could stop us from making a fun car, so if we are to conserve driving pleasure we need to find a very narrow way. It’s important to show that’s possible.” That’s better.

“We can’t have as much over steer now,” he continues. “But there’s also the stiffness. Cars today are more and more stiff of suspension and can’t drive fast on bumpy roads. The Fiesta is very smooth, with good steering, but the Mini is stiff and that’s not what we want. It performs very well when the road is good but will be uncomfortable in urban areas. This

is important. The new car will be less stiff than we have made them in the recent past.”

This is a relief, because the 207 GTI was intolerable on a poor road. “The 208 will be a true GTI,” Demoulin says, “not just a car for good roads and tracks. We can exchange our thoughts about it today; it’s not too late for changes.”

Britain has always loved a good hot hatch and remains one of the largest markets. “The UK will be the second biggest,” says Blanchet. “The 205 GTI was not just for specialist car fans; it was also for fashion people. It had broad appeal, which we want to replicate with the 208. In France, 30 per cent of205 sales were GTIs. The 207 GTI was very stiff - radically so - and sales were lower.

Simister thinks 208 GTI’s steering could do with more heft and response

“We have a new philosophy to make the feeling much nearer the 205: very dynamic but not so stiff. And it must have a hint of fashion. It must appeal to men and women.”

So what do they make of a 26-year- old 205 GTI 1.9? “The tractability,” says Demoulin. “I’m surprised how good it is. There’s a very long rev range. And the engine noise is very real, not artificial. The steering is heavy at low speeds but there’s a lot of feedback. Some of the vibration is good for feel but not for comfort.

The softly sprung 205 GTI combines comfort with agility

“Grip and balance are good. It’s not over steering like I’d heard... it gives a feeling of safety.” That’s a surprise; all that’s changed since 1987 is the tires. Blanchet praises the ride and the suspension’s long travel: “It’s better than I remembered.”

Car looks worlds apart, but both aim for fashion appeal

Will there be any final suspension tuning in the UK? “No,” says Demoulin, “but there are roads like these near our Sochaux and Belchamp facilities. We could not have made a Mini there. You like the 208 THP [I do; it’s easily the best ‘cooking’ 208] because it was designed on such roads. Today has convinced me we have a good solution for the 208 GTL It will be more precise and a bit stiffer than the THP, but not too far away.”

February 2013, Mortefontaine, near Paris

Not the Mortefontaine test track, but the fast, sinuous roads thereabouts. I have driven my 205 here to meet Demoulin with a pre-production, final-spec 208 GTl, and I’m about to be the first journalist to drive it. First, though, I shall be driven by the man charged with defining its dynamics.

We dive on to a quiet, curvy road. Demoulin points the nose and comes off the power. The ESP is off; around flicks the tail. He’s making a point.

He’s telling me about handling ratios, too. One is neutral, less than one means a propensity to over steer, more than one means under steer prevails. Absolute values depend on many (often transient) things, but the ratio sums up a car’s natural bias. “In the ’80s we’d aim for 0.5 to 0.6,” says Demoulin. “The 206 and 207 were 1.3. The Citroen DS3 Racing is 1.5.” That’s a surprise, but it explains the Citroen’s sadly wooden feel.

“This car’s ratio is 1.0. For safety, it’s not possible to make it 0.5, but it’s a GTl and we wanted to do something different. The balance is one of the key points, along with good steering feedback.

“The ride height is lowered by 8mm. We started at the initial height then decided to lower it. We could perceive the difference immediately.”

Compared with the 208 THP, all the bushes, springs and dampers are stiffer, the front track is wider thanks to longer wishbones, and the front struts and rear torsion beam are thicker. The latter brings extra rear roll stiffness and keener handling balance. Tires are 205/45 R17s on wheels with greater outset, framed with arch extensions, and the electric power steering is reprogrammed to give a more credible build-up of weighting with cornering force.

The engine is a 197bhp version of the usual direct-injection PSA/ BMW turbo 1.6. It has a deep, keen exhaust note that emits tasty fluffs and splutters, but there’s little aural excitement from under the bonnet, despite our previous conversations.

A final word from Demoulin before my turn: “We don’t want to make a racing car like a Clio RS or a DS3 Racing, although, like them, we have 197bhp. We want to make a GTl - a car best for the road.”

Eight-valve 1.9 in 205 is enjoyably tractable; blown 1.6 in 208 is muscular enough

I’m gripping a small, low-set steering wheel in a cabin dotted with red accents. With well bolstered seats, there’s a feeling of sitting in the car, not on it. Starting is by normal key, and you don’t have to depress the clutch pedal; how deliciously simple.

Acceleration is amply muscular, but not explosive. Throttle response is keen enough to disguise slight lag at low revs; overtaking is easy. The six-speed ’box isn’t the sweetest, but production cars should be better.

The 205’s cabin shows its age, but that helm is bursting with chatty, engaging feedback; like its ancestor, sporty red accents pepper the interior of the 208

Crunch time. How does it handle? Well, it gets better the harder you go. The steering can feel a touch numb around the center, but the front wheels bite well into a bend. And, vitally, this GTI rides nicely on undulating roads, dealing with bumps tautly but with compliant damping. There’s a responsive, all-of-a-piece feeling to go with the throttle-reactive balance.

But... despite Demoulin’s claims, I don’t think there’s enough steering weight build-up in corners, making it hard to assess the load and remaining front-end grip. I crave more initial bite and response.

A drive in the 205 proves the point. It’s more softly sprung than the 208 and rolls more, yet its responses are extremely precise, thanks partly to less compliant bushings. It connects brilliantly to the road, helped by a strong build-up of steering weight.

You feel you’re leaning on wheels pushed far out to the edges of the car, with every force acting on them being transmitted to your hands. That, and the throttle-controllable balance, is why you can go so hard in the bends. You’re continuously on top of instinctive, tactile, transparent controllability, helped by the throttle response, and that’s why we love it.

Maybe today’s buyers don’t want garrulous feedback, and it’s unfair to judge the new car by such standards. But feeling connected is crucial in a hot hatch, and the 208 GTI, though very encouraging, isn’t quite there.

A little more steering mapping should do it, but meanwhile there are the new Fiesta ST and Clio RS 200 Turbo to contend with. The fastest 208 is a credible GTI, but not a perfect one. How it stacks up against its peers will be fascinating.

Peugeot 205 GTI vs Peugeot 208 GTI