According to people I meet in petrol stations and at dinner parties nobody
reads this column any more because it’s just a blizzard of scarlet Ferraris
and jet-black Lamborghinis, a meaningless background babble of silly price
tags and preposterous superlatives.
Of course it’s not hard to see why this might be so. In this job you can
choose which car is brought to your house on a Monday morning, fully
insured, brimful with free petrol and spotlessly clean. So would you elect
to spend the week in a Kia Magentis or a Ferrari 575?
If you go for the Kia, you will have a miserable time at the wheel, followed
by an even more miserable time at the computer. The cursor will wink away
until you’re driven into the kitchen to see if the plate of cold sausages
that weren’t there half an hour ago have miraculously appeared.
Then you’ll have a cup of coffee and read the papers. Then you’ll look at the
cursor a bit more and play Free Cell until it’s time to check the fridge
again.
If, on the other hand, you select the Ferrari, the words just vomit out of
your head as your fingers dance on the keyboard desperately trying to keep
up. It takes me all day to write 1,500 words about something dull from the
Far East. But I can rattle off a piece on any Italian silly car in 20
minutes flat.
That, then, is why I prefer to write about exotica. But amazingly, and
contrary to popular myth, I hardly ever do.
It turns out the big and sinister motor industry pays a marketing company to
keep tabs on what journalists say about their cars, and — how can I put
this? — I have managed to obtain the dossier on me.
It’s scary, partly because I now realise everything I write is being monitored
and partly because of the results. You see, the brand I write and talk about
most of all is not Ferrari or Lamborghini — they’re at the bottom of the
list. It is, in fact, Renault. Can you believe that?
What’s more, the report isn’t just quantitative; it’s qualitative, too, so the
car firms can see not just how often I mention them but whether I’m kind or
foul.
BMW, it seems, comes in for the most stick, which isn’t surprising given the
primary-school styling and the melted Action Man plastic on the dashboards.
What is surprising is that I’m most kind about Porsches. I have no idea how
this has happened but I do know how to bring the average down a bit . . .
The Cayenne is ugly and driven by people who are too daft to realise the Range
Rover’s a better car. The new 911 is a con because it’s exactly the same as
the old one, which, in turn, was exactly the same as the one that came along
in 1453. And the Boxster is only driven by homosexuals.
There; now let’s move on to poor old Peugeot, the only car maker on the list
about whom I’ve never uttered or written a single, solitary kind word. It’s
all been neutral, negative or very negative.
I can’t think why because what Renault, Peugeot and, to a lesser extent,
Citroën offer today’s motorist is a mouthwatering alternative to the German
norm.
These days it has been decided that we, the customers, all want dark, gloomy
German interiors, hard German seats and a sporty German ride. So all cars,
whether they be British, Italian, Japanese or American, are built to ape
that Teutonic sense of unburstability you get from a Volkswagen or a
Mercedes-Benz.
Happily, though, Johnny Frog continues to sing from his own song sheet.
Renault especially — aargh, I’m mentioning it again — gives us light, breezy
interiors, squidgy seats and a floaty ride.
What’s more, French cars these days are priced well below the German rivals
and come as standard with all sorts of electronic trickery such as
rain-sensing wipers and tyre-pressure sensors to make them even more
appealing. And best of all, French cars — just about all of them — are cool.
You certainly find this with Peugeot’s relatively new 407. With its huge
lights and that massive mouth, it has the front-end drama of a supercar
welded to the rear end of an ordinary saloon. Not since the Rover SD1 has
this been achieved so successfully. It is very cool, very striking and,
we’re told, very safe in an accident.
It is also well equipped. For £18,450 you get electric seats, door mirrors
that fold away when the car’s locked, parking sensors, hazard warning lights
that come on automatically if you brake hard, headlamps that come on when
it’s dark and wipers that come on when it’s raining. Also, there are
airbags, for your head, your ears, your passenger and even, I’m thrilled to
say, for your testicles.
Then there’s the optional satellite navigation system. It’s easy to use and
quick to make up its mind, but best of all the directions are given by a man
who has quite the strangest accent I’ve ever heard.
Who says the French are racists? This chap had plainly arrived from Lithuania
only a week before he was slotted into the Peugeot’s dashboard and told to
read, in English, complicated instructions. He’s hysterical. If you’re bored
this afternoon, find a Peugeot dealership and give him a listen.
Less hysterical was the Berlin-black cockpit, but happily there was nothing
Germanic about the ride.
When I read that the 407 had extravagant double wishbone suspension at the
front and a complicated multilink set-up at the rear, I thought: “Oh no.
It’ll be another BMW wannabe.” But it isn’t.
You have lots of grip if you want to press on, and tidy handling if you press
on too much. But you still have that French float, which isolates you
beautifully from the British road workers’ slap-happy attitude to making
repairs.
All in all, then, a stylish, nice-riding, well-equipped and well-priced
alternative to Ford’s German Mondeo, BMW’s German 3-series and Vauxhall’s
German Vectra.
And now I’m afraid I must revert to type on the Peugeot front because the 407
has many, many flaws. First of all, the driving position was truly ghastly.
No amount of fiddling with the seat or the wheel would create a spot that
was just so for someone long in the leg.
I had to go everywhere with my knees wide apart, which wasn’t so bad for me,
but would be a much bigger nuisance for, say, Jodie Kidd in a short skirt.
Next, you have poor-quality materials on the dash and a centre console that
endlessly trapped my fingers. But this was nothing compared with the
diesel-powered paraffin stove under the bonnet.
I was coasting up to a roundabout, foot on the clutch and with second gear
already selected. “Yes,” I thought, “there is just enough of a gap to get
out before that lorry arrives.” So, I engaged the clutch and put my foot on
the accelerator.
If you were the driver of the lorry I’d like to apologise now, but you see it
wasn’t my fault. In any other car I’d have been out of your way with yards
to spare, but I’m afraid the Peugeot continued to coast. The turbo simply
refused to wake up and as a result there was absolutely no power at all.
The next day, leaving an underground car park in London, the same thing
happened. I was on the ramp, which was not what you’d call steep, in second
and the car just spluttered to a halt.
The blurb says this 2 litre turbo motor develops 136bhp, but what sort of
horses are we talking about here? Shetland ponies? Stylish, cool and well
priced it may be, but the 407 is also uncomfortable to sit in, cheaply
finished and woefully down on power.
I’m afraid, then, that this is yet another damning report of a Peugeot and
another feather in Renault’s cap, because if you want something comfy and
non-German the Laguna is a much better bet.
The 407 is like one of those French films you sometimes find on FilmFour in
the middle of the night. It promises much and it delivers plenty of pubic
hair. But somehow that isn’t really enough.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Peugeot 407 2.0 SV HDi
Engine type: Four-cylinder, 1997cc diesel
Power: 136bhp @ 4000rpm
Torque: 240 lb ft @ 2000rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Safety rating: Five-star Euro NCAP
Insurance: Group 11
Fuel: 47.9mpg (combined cycle)
CO2: 155g/km
Acceleration: 0-62mph: 9.8sec
Top speed: 129mph
Price: £18,450
Verdict: Looks great but disappoints
