I have a recurring nightmare that, as nightmares go, may at first sound like a fairly benign dream. It involves sitting in a car dealership, signing some papers and being led out by a grinning salesman to where a shiny new car is waiting for me.
When I say car I really mean vehicle, since it bears little resemblance to my idea of what a car is. The salesman hands me the keys to this boxy lump of a people carrier. In the distance I can see some young buck jumping into the 911 that had until this point been my pride and joy.
In the distance I can maybe hear some ankle biters squabbling and a baby crying. I say ‘maybe’ as this is the point at which I generally wake up in a cold sweat.
Where motoring is concerned I’ve always gone by a simple mantra: two seats good, four seats bearable, more seats bad. So it’s with a fair amount of prejudice that I nervously skirt around the Peugeot 3008, a vehicle that’s clearly been designed for more than four.
By bringing us the 3008, Peugeot have created a ‘crossover’. Now if ‘crossover’ means something that doesn’t know what it is, that’s not good. If, however, it means they’ve designed an MPV that even someone like me can like… now that’s impressive.
Impressive, and unlikely. But to be fair, the first impressions aren’t bad. Thanks to the grille, from the front this looks like Bender from Matt Groening’s cartoon series Futurama. If you don’t know what I’m on about, you can see what I mean here:
… fortunately I quite like Futurama. From the side it looks like any of a number of saloons – nothing to write home about but likewise nothing to complain about. From the back it’s reassuringly solid and chunky again.
What it manages to do is to not quite look like the 7-seater Peugeot 5008, a vehicle that has ‘school run’ written all over it (and generally written in biro on the upholstery by the kids in the back). Essentially, Peugeot have taken the 308 chassis and heaped upon it as big a frame as is possible without the end product looking daft. As a result you’ve something that’s styled as an SUV but is lighter, nippier and cheaper to run (both in terms of fuel consumption and in terms of benefitting from the kickbacks that come from being environmentally friendly(ish)).
The Peugeot Tardis
Once inside, you get a noticeably higher vantage point than the 308, which is as you’d expect given this is a taller and wider vehicle. The extra height makes the car feel really roomy. In fact there’s so much space inside this tardis-like contraption that I felt compelled to get in and out a couple of times – the interior and exterior just don’t seem to match (on closer inspection the 3008 actually bulges slightly over the wheel arches and the large high windscreen goes a long way towards stopping you from feeling boxed in). The Nissan Qashqai (with which this is inevitably compared) doesn’t feel half as roomy, and the 3008’s adaptable bootspace is an ergonomic triumph.
So what of the drive? Well, that 308 chassis ain’t half bad. It’s not amazing, but with prices starting at €24,900, what do you expect? The key thing is that it makes it feel that you’re driving a car not a high-sided vehicle. It grips the road surprisingly well, particularly when cornering.
The 1.6 turbo petrol and the 2.0 diesel engines come with a “roll control” thingy on the rear axle which basically means that the suspension is soft enough to absorb bumps on the straight but stiffens sufficiently whenever you come to a bend thereby avoiding any unnerving sway.
The standard 1.6 diesel engine works well enough, but if you can get hold of the 1.6 turbo petrol you get a super-reactive car that’s actually fun to drive.
So is it an MUV, an SUV or an overgrown hatchback? In the end it doesn’t really matter. All in all, the Peugeot 3008 is a surprisingly decent car for the price.
The lowdown
Price: €24,900 – €29,485
Engine: Standard engine – 1.6 Hdi diesel with 110bhp at 4,000rpm. A choice of 6-speed manuel or electronically controlled Eco gearbox. (Also available as a 1.6 turbo petrol and a 2.0 diesel.)
Top speed: 180km/h
Fuel economy: 70kmpg
CO2 emissions: 137g/km
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