Pride of place might have gone to the UK unveil of the RCZ concept but a scissor-door Irmscher 207 GTi was the real surprise on the Peugeot stand.
What’s new on Peugeot’s London motor show stand?
The 207 GTi by Irmscher is a study of how far a highly tricked-out production Peugeot could look. It’s no clunky concept either. The amazing scissor doors are damped wonderfully and shut beautifully, the interior has been tastefully dressed in two-tone red and black soft leather and the sculpted two-tone alloy wheels genuinely look cool.
CAR’s Peugeot highlight
The front of Irmscher to equip a 207 with scissor doors has to be admired. Those doors and the other changes are ready for a limited production run too pending Peugeot giving Irmscher the green light to sell the variant through its dealers. Peugeot is officially “monitoring interest” right now but there is the precedent of a limited production-run 4007 by Irmscher already on sale offering more than £2000 worth of extra kit for only a £500 higher retail price.
What were they thinking?
Less good is the red bonnet and white stripe decal, although there are thankfully other options.
In a nutshell
For the UK the RCZ concept – set for production in 2010 – is the mainstream news but our guilty pleasure is definitely the scissor-door 207 GTi.
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What surprised me most?
So you’re stand is unhelpfully positioned opposite Auto-Glym’s F40, so how do you attract the punters? Sexy new 308RCz coupe? Nice-looking 407 Coupe? Unusual and costly 908 HDi Le Mans racer? Nope. A pair of 308 SWs. One a ‘Sport’. That’s what. Idiots.
Forget the PR spin: what’s the real story?
Buried amid the sleepiness is a good story of a standard 308 HDi averaging 90mpg across Australia. Who needs hydrogen or algae (I was told that this is the future and I believe them. From now my fish-tank doesn’t get cleaned. Five years I’ll be laughing). The RCZ is as good looking a car as you’ll find at the show, a diesel racer is a fab story and the sumptuous 908RC saloon a classic ‘show-car’. If they still ‘owned’ class-leading chassis dynamics fine, but somehow that seems to have got buried too.
Reader verdict
Pug’s gone lifestyle, but I’m not sure odd-shaped estates and ever expanding detailing is what people want no matter how much the adverts cost. Presumably this shows where Pug makes its money, but for how long? At least they left the mobile-wardrobe at home.
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