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Nostalgia for the 1980s should have its limits. Turning back the calendar to the decade of the Montego, big hair and Duran Duran is always going to be an idea fraught with peril.
Which is probably why Peugeot’s new GTI Concept, a centrepiece of its Geneva Show stand next month, doesn’t look like a piece of pure 1980s retro. But its aim is to get back in contact with one of our favourite memories of that era, the 205 GTI.
Like the 205 GTI it’s short, light and powerful. It’s got the proportions of a little bulldog, and a GTI badge on the pillar behind the rear side window. It even gives a hat-tip to red seat belts and grey-tartan seat pattern.
See all the pictures of the new Peugeot 208 GTI concept
Peugeot knows it has lost its hot-hatch mojo since then. But this souped-up version of the 208, previewing a production version about a year away, shows it might just know what it needs to do to get it back.
How better to start than by giving it more poooooooweeeer. It runs the RCZ’s 200bhp 1.6 turbo. We’re fervently hoping that while they’re at it, they’ve also installed a goodly dose of the RCZ’s handling smarts. The signs are good. It runs 18-inch wheels and a wider track compared with the regular 208.
The 206 and 207 were too swollen, too ornate-looking and not powerful enough. The 208 carves at least 100kg from its predecessor’s weight, and a huge 6cm from its front overhang. Yet it increases both interior space and improves crash strength.
See all the pictures of the new Peugeot 208 GTI concept
In other words if it was a sandwich, it’d have thinner, crustier bread on the outside and more meat in between. Well count us hungry. As Duran Duran would have had it, Hungry Like the Wolf.
Want more? We’ll have a full and exclusive shoot with the new Peugeot GTI in next month’s Top Gear Magazine, on sale 29 February
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What do you think?
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Gokul commented on this article
at 09:58 am on 17 February 2012
What does GTI stand for?
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splick_smith commented on this article
at 10:00 am on 17 February 2012
lets hope it even has one ounce of the spirit of the 205GTI, isnt it funny how the cars made when no one was really trying that hard, (Golf GTI, 205 GTI, 64 Mustang) are the all time benchmarks that can never quite be matched?
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8thgear commented on this article
at 10:20 am on 17 February 2012
Somebody ought to tell carmakers that "you cannot compete with a ghost". The original 205 GTI was good -at the time-. We'd hate it now were it not for the nostalgia associated with it. So this car is not going to get compared to it's current competitors, but to a distant nostalgic ghostly memory. And then it'll fail miserably, regardless of how good -or bad- it is. Stop looking at the past and build cars for the future - a fun future, not a battery powered one please.
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Humza_911 commented on this article
at 10:31 am on 17 February 2012
the corsa 'ring edition is still better...and will be
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Humza_911 commented on this article
at 10:35 am on 17 February 2012
and the back is humiliatingly similar to that of the lancia-chrsyler ypsilon thingy..
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