► The icon returns! Peugeot’s GTi is on its way back
► We take the 205 GTi, 306 GTi-6 and 206 GTi on a road trip
► Will the new hot hatch live up to the brilliance of the originals?
The Peugeot 205 GTi. Icon of the 1980s, tuning hero of the 1990s, and now a white-hot classic car with investment-grade values. This, and the cars that followed in its wake – the 306 GTi-6 and 206 GTi – are all hot hatches that Peugeot needs to learn from if it’s going to jump-start the GTi brand for the 2020s.
To find out what makes these cars special, and how they can educate the resurrection of one of the most iconic sports sub brands in history, we remember the weekend back in 2019 when we took these three cars on that most 1990s of things: a booze cruise. After testing them on northern France’s twisty B-roads, we drove to Prescott Hillclimb for the Peugeot Sport Club UK’s National event.
One day, 500 miles, some of the hottest days on record… what could possibly go wrong? Let’s go back in time and relive our findings.
Saturday | 8:55am | Folkestone
The sun is shining, the weather looks clear and even Britain has its happy warm face on. And so do we as we line up before the boarding gate. I’m along for this trip with JJ Volans and supreme Peugeot anorak, Jon Burgess. First to join us Blighty side is Jason Lee Hicklin and Laura Mortlock in their stunning red Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9.
It’s still a great-looking car, the Peugeot 205. The GTi, in particular, is a sublime mixture of elegance, eagerness and 1980s-style detailing. Okay, so it’s a bit lightweight and flimsy, but it’s undeniable in its intent – this car is meant for fun and games. The Speedline alloys take us straight back to the 1980s, and it has to be one of the finest Peugeot shapes of all time.
The 306 GTi-6, here owned by Kelly Martin-Kelly, is by no means a munter. In perhaps isn’t quite as pitch-perfect as the 205, but it’s still a lovely thing to behold – and time has been exceptionally kind to it.
The biggest surprise is just how good Chris Clements’ 206 GTi 180 looks. Okay, so the metallic blue paint really pings in the sun, but even if this was a normal British summer and soggier than a communal sofa at an old people’s home, the 206 would still look great. It’s perhaps a little fussier than the other two, a little more bloated, but it still looks the part. It’s got the right pumped-up, steroidal profile to signal its performance intent.
That will have to wait though, as it’s time for us to get through passport control and make our way to the car park holding pen and prepare the cars. This means braving the service station, which is a grimfest of tired eyes and whirling kids. Time to seek solace in the AA shop, and make our cars legal in France. That means spending a fortune on reflective kit. Let’s hope we don’t have to use any of it.
Put any group of performance Pug aficionados together and the conversation inevitably turns to the optimum 205 GTi engine. This debate has raged on for the best part of 30 years, and will probably never be resolved. Still, it’s a tedious 45-minute trip under the Channel in a sealed metal cabin, so we might as well give it a bash. Burgess opts out of the conversation and heads for a nap in the camera car. His snoring is a very passable impersonation of the aftermarket big bore exhausts present on most 1990s 205s.
We’ve gone for the bigger-engined 205 as it’s a bit of a fairer match with the other cars here. Around 130 horses gallop through the 15-inch wheels, still some way short of the 167bhp in the GTi-6 and 175bhp in the 206, but the 205 is easily the lightest here, tipping the scales at just 875kg compared to the 306’s 1214kg and 206’s 1125kg.
Despite the lightness, the 205 has a very stylish interior, its mixture of red and black as quintessentially 1980s as a gyrating Prince in a purple costume. The mixture of sharp lines, italicised graphics, triangular dashboard components and part leather seats just take you right there. It’s flimsy to the touch, but this matters little when you’re out on the open road.
As we roll off the train our hopes for French B-road delight initially feel a little out of place. Happily, photographer Jordan has a plan. Jordan leads us to Licques, west of Calais. Soon, the industrial turns to the rural, with billowing trees, fresh flowers and, importantly, tempting ribbons of asphalt.
It doesn’t take long for JJ to nick the 205 GTi keys and head off. Burgess follows suit with the 306 and I am camera car guy. Curses. Both of them return sweaty but grinning. ‘It’s always a joy to pilot a 205 GTi,’ JJ enthuses.’ Many driving experiences dull with repetition but going flat out in one of these never gets old. Direct steering, a brake pedal that needs shoving to the floor before it does anything, and a playful chassis that’s always happy to cock a wheel in anger, are all a part of the formula.’
JJ adds, ‘This 1.9-litre GTi certainly has the grunt to still feel usefully fast, even today. The real joie de vivre doesn’t come from its outright pace, but from the way it shifts its weight about. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of it to begin with, but simply lacking mass doesn’t automatically make for a drivers’ favourite.
‘It helps, of course, but it’s the way in which you’re able to balance this Pug on the edge of understeer one minute and transition it into oversteer with ease that makes it feel so much more alive than its contemporaries, especially those from Volkswagen and Ford. The playful knife-edge handling keeps your senses alive. You’re always busy behind the wheel of a 205.’
Meanwhile, Jon’s chipper about the 306. ‘Age may have dated the 306’s interior but its chassis remains razor sharp. Getting the tail to move isn’t the panic-inducing affair it would be in a 205 because there’s a longer wheelbase. Linking bends is easy, and there’s more than enough torque too.
‘I tried the aftermarket head unit to see if I could get the kind of gibberish radio station of which the French are so fond. I had no Gitanes box of hoary nonsense to draw on, so I did another loop with just the XU10 for company; having the extra valves means it can breathe properly, not that any of its eight-valve brethren struggled to rev.’
Despite Jon’s enthusiasm, it’s not all good news. ‘The driving position is slightly awkward. Nevertheless, the fixed wheel and relatively deep dashboard do nothing to deter you from extracting the most from the chassis.’
The 306 GTi-6 really did move the hot hatch game on in the 1990s. True, it wasn’t a great era for the breed, with the Golf GTi losing its balls and insurance companies in full attack dog mode. The 306 upped the horsepower benchmark to 167bhp and added a sixth ratio, at a time when the Golf could only muster 150bhp and was about as thrilling as filling out your tax returns. Six gears was quite novel then, something the excellent Peugeot ad team played on. When it was released it blew the cobwebs from the hot hatch market, kicking them back onto the petrolhead’s radar.
On my own personal radar is the diminishing time we have in France. Peeling JJ out of the 205 GTi is proving challenging, and not just because the part-leather is wanting to be part-JJ in the heat of the midday sun. Not wanting to be left out, I wrestle Burgess for the keys to the 306 and we head to a petrol station in search of car and human sustenance.
The XU10J4RS doesn’t initially thrill but it is a truly great engine, fizzing with energy, screaming to the redline, begging for more. Plant the throttle and it comes alive, cheering you on to the next corner. Once there, it’s a delight. It’s the heaviest car here but it doesn’t feel it. The steering is direct and sharp, and you really have to be leaning hard on the front trotters to push the nose wide.
Maintaining the porky theme, you’d have to be properly ham-fisted to unsettle it (on decent tyres). There’s just so much grip. It begs you to wring every last bit out of the chassis. Every input is translated to the nose with the speed and efficiency of a babelfish. It rides well too, for a hot hatch of such sporting talent. Northern French roads aren’t the smoothest, yet the 306 is well enough damped to level them out. I just want to drive it over and over again. It’s really that good.
JJ’s similarly impressed. ‘There are few hot hatches that feel even half as fun to drive as the 306 GTi-6,’ he says. ‘It’s not without its faults; it still feels flimsy and the cabin lacks the quality feel of certain German rivals, but that really doesn’t matter once you get behind the wheel. The 306 GTi-6 makes us mourn the loss of driver-focused Peugeots from an era when they cared about how their products drove, rather than just how they looked.’
Soon it’s time to leave, but not before a trip to the hypermarket. We’ve 15 minutes to spare until check-in at the Eurotunnel and my right foot’s tapping like Lionel Blair wired up to the mains. Meanwhile, JJ’s giving it the whole Oz Clarke in the wine section, Burgess is on cheese and bread duty and I’m piling the 33 Export into the 205. I’ve no idea whether it’s any good or not, I just remember it from an old Sierra Cosworth rally car livery.
With just minutes to go we shove everything into the cars and head for Calais. Delays at passport control apparently causes a vein on my head to grow so big it almost becomes a sentient being. Our reward is another hour waiting for a late train. That gives us time to consider the 206 GTi, which has thus far been a bit left out.
Mention the 206 GTi today and you’re likely to get some choice Anglo-Saxon in return, but if you look back to the launch press reviews they were favourable. It wasn’t particularly quick, though – it had just 135bhp and the 8.7sec 0-60mph time for those early cars was barely any quicker than the 306 GTi-6 despite weighing less. Smaller rivals from RenaultSport and Citroën robbed Peugeot of sales.
The company responded in 2003 by pushing 175bhp into a 180 model, but by then it was too little too late. The RenaultSport Clio now had 182bhp, and the Ford Focus ST170 meant the Blue Oval was back in the hot hatch game. But the biggest problem came from the Honda Civic Type R EP3. With great insurance deals, 197bhp and a screaming VTEC four-pot, it moved the game on again.
The 206 has proved disappointing so far for JJ. ‘The styling was a revelation in 1998 and those lines remain as handsome, and divisive, 20 years later. It’s a real shame that what lies under those sculpted curves wasn’t as accomplished. ‘The 206 just feels like any other 2000s front-wheel drive car. Devoid of passion and feedback, it’s simply a capable vehicle that can pound down a motorway in relative comfort. The frenetic fizz you got in the 205 is long gone and even the 306’s perfectly measured mixture of driver pleasure and usability is hard to detect.’
Now for the dash to Prescott in an afternoon.
Sunday | 9:37am | Prescott
Run by the Bugatti Owners Club and in operation since 1938, Prescott’s a truly beautiful motorsport location. It’s got a long and glorious motorsport history, that 0.641 mile run playing host to all manner of exotic machinery over the years. The Peugeot Sport Club UK has made it its home for shows for the past few years.
The morning is even warmer than the day before – perfect for some Peugeot-spotting – and we’re still recovering from our non-stop drive here from Dover yesterday. But the location lifts the spirits. The Peugeot Sport Club UK puts on a great event – there’s a vast variety of Peugeots, from 406 Coupes to 205 GTis, and from vintage machines to the latest models.
Thus far my role on this road trip had largely been to steward the Hyundai camera car. Now it was my turn to sample some hot French produce. First, the 205. This is an absolute hero to many, a childhood and adolescence icon. There’s a certain trepidation too for me, as my first 205 GTi drive was behind an Mi16 engine. That was a loud, angry car that felt that it was going to shake itself to pieces as quickly as it was going to send me deaf. Or to my death. I loved it.
So stepping into Jason’s 205 GTi is initially disappointing. The XU9 JA’s 130bhp only has 875kg to lug around, but despite its flighty feel it doesn’t have the immediacy of either the Mi16 or the 306 GTi-6. Call it my age, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed. I was expecting more verve; it revs well and has an eager buzz, but still I was expecting to be enchanted in a way the legend that precedes it suggests.
That still happens in the corners – it’s communicative, agile and tight through the bends, though driving the 306 first was perhaps a mistake. The 205 does feel smaller (because it is) and more nimble, but the steering isn’t as communicative, and not quite as immediate. That’s to be expected given their relative ages, the pace of development and more besides, but the 306’s feeling of lightness despite weighing nearly a third more than the 205 is telling.
‘The 205 is undoubtedly worthy of a whole heap of praise, but there’s a danger in believing too much hype,’ JJ says. ‘Too many armchair experts have crowned the 205 as the greatest hot hatch ever, an oversimplification that completely ignores the passage of time. A decade or so after the 205 arrived, the Clio Williams, Nathan’s go-to hero the EP3 Type R, and our 306 GTi-6 appeared, and are all objectively better drivers’ cars.
‘Of our three fast Peugeots, the 306 GTi-6 is by far the most capable and quickest down a B-road. It feels cohesive and smooth rather than frantic and fragile like the 205, or vague and lazy like the 206. The engine has the torque to exploit short straights, and in the corners it has a chassis you can lean on to maintain momentum.’
Despite JJ’s earlier vitriol regarding the 206, I’ve an open mind. I quickly have to agree, he was right. Any of the weight-saving over the 306 doesn’t feel apparent through the 206’s wheel or pedals. The steering feels remote; any information on the road surface feels like it’s being phoned in from a place that doesn’t have phones. Roadholding and grip are good, and it’s fairly neutral – though much more likely to understeer than the others – but there’s no fizz.
Of course, slightly dead steering isn’t always a bad thing – witness its great rival, the Honda Civic Type R EP3. But that countered with a wheel-at-each-corner go-kart feeling; its inert steering seemed like an invitation to thrash it harder. The more you push the 206, the more it rebels.
The Civic also had a tight six-speed gearbox. The 206’s five ratios are a backward step from the 306’s six. In isolation it’s a good ‘box, but it’s not as positive across the gate as the other two.
The Civic also had that storming high-revving engine, a real party piece that did little for your everyday comfort but a lot for your adrenaline levels. The 206’s engine can’t live with that. It’s a more torquey unit, which makes it much more usable everyday than the all-or-nothing Civic. But if you’re looking for high-revving thrills for B-road fun, then this isn’t the place. The engine simply doesn’t build revs as quickly as you want it to; once its upper echelons are reached it’s time to change down again.
It reminds me of the Ford Focus ST170, which has a similarly lethargic, long-geared nature. Sadly for the 206, the ST170 redeems itself by handling more like a Peugeot GTi than the 206 does. There are some good points, though. If you had to choose any of our three to use every day, the 206 is the only real choice. It’s comfortable, good-looking and roomy too, but you’d never be dreaming of taking the long way home in one.
The 206 GTi is a good car, but it’s simply not a great hot hatchback. The 205 GTi and 306 GTi-6 are both exactly that. But as our hot hatches bask in Prescott’s leafy grounds, it’s pretty clear that there’s one winner here.
Verdict
As the sun sets on our adventure, there’s only one car that’s dominating our minds. The 306 GTi-6. JJ starts to reminisce. ‘My first Peugeot 205 GTi drive came when I was a misty-eyed 22-year-old. Until then, I was a die-hard Volkswagen Golf GTi fan. Then everything changed, and most VW products no longer hold the same appeal they once did.
‘It’s all the 205’s fault. I’m eternally grateful for that first hot Pug experience for broadening my motoring horizons, and I still adore the 205. But after two days and countless miles, it’s the 306 GTi-6 that’s really left an impression. I’m already searching the classifieds with the serious intention of adding one to my collection. The 306 shines as the clear favourite. It’s the sweet spot between the 206 and 205, and makes a very strong case for being the best all-round hot hatch ever.’
I’m convinced too. The 306 GTi-6 takes the 205 GTi’s sheer effervescence and hones it, moulds it, improves it. It’s not quite as agile as the 205, but in every other way it is superior. And because I’m driving the camera car again, I’m cursing my colleagues’ head start on the classified hunt. The fact they’re still so cheap is simply astounding.
The 306 represents a tipping point in the hot hatchback lineage. It’s a blend of the best of the 205 GTi without most of its flimsiness, with a degree of the 206’s civility but none of its soporific tendencies. It’s not only a sweet spot in the Peugeot hierarchy, but I agree with the gruesome twosome in the rear seats: the 306 GTi-6 is a contender for the best hot hatch ever.
Those 205 GTi aficionados out there might be upset by the result, but as the French say, ‘Qui n’avance pas, recule.’ Or alternatively: the king is dead, long live the king…
This article originally appeared in the August 2019 issue of Modern Classics.
A more than little than five years on and it’s impossible to disagree with this verdict. Yes, the 205 GTI was an instant classic from the moment it was launched in 1984, but it was not quite the dominant hot hatch of its time that many people think. It was too uncomfortable for some, unbearably flimsy for others, and not quite German for the rest. But it was – and remains – a compromised, tactile, gorgeous gem capable of melting the heart of the most cynical petrolhead. No wonder they’re worth so much today.
The 206 GTI 180, weirdly, is getting better with the passing of time. Its styling, once so divisive is ageing well, and its dynamics and performance are competent enough for anyone who wants something quick and engaging. It’s interesting to see that values are firming, with the best 180s now on the up, riding on a wave of enthusiasm for sporting Peugeots in general.
But the 306 GTI-6 is the one to have, and a clear winner here. I remember chatting with Nathan when I came back from this jaunt and he was positively brimming with enthusiam for it – unusual as he generally doesn’t ‘do’ French cars. This feature inspired me to buy a 306 GTI-6 – still a bargain back then, and considerably cheaper than the Rallye – which I part owned with my son. I loved it, still do, and he still uses it as his daily.
If Peugeot can get anywhere near recreating the 306’s combination of dynamic magic, visual appeal and all-round usability with its next GTI, then it could end up revolutionising the electric hot hatch market. I suspect it’s too late, but if anyone can pull it off, Peugeot can.