My plan to start writing about cars for a living was, though I say so myself,
a stroke of genius. I’d write one review, which I would syndicate to local
newspapers all over Britain. Then I’d spend the rest of the week in the pub.
What’s more, I’d actually have to drive the cars I was writing about so I’d be
going to and from the pub in a Ferrari one day and a Lamborghini the next.
Brilliant.
Unfortunately, only two local newspapers thought it was a good idea, which
meant I had to live on forty quid a week, and neither thought their readers,
or advertisers more like, would be very interested in whether the Countach
could outdrag a Boxer 512BB. What they wanted was stuff about Yugos and
Maestros and Ladas. They could never get enough on Ladas.
Still, it wasn’t the end of the world because they would allow me to write
about Peugeots, and back then in the middle of the 1980s Peugeot was the
coronation chicken in a wedding buffet of awfulness and dross.
All of its cars from the 1.1 litre 205 through the ugly duckling 309 to the
2.2 litre 505 GTi had a rightness and a righteousness about them that turned
every humdrum drive into a journey. Someone, I once wrote, in the bowels of
Peugeot understands handling and how a chassis should feel.
I never found out who he was but I do know this. He doesn’t work there any
more. Today, Peugeots are sensible and practical, which makes them large and
lumpen and lead-footed. The zing and the pizzazz have gone. Drive a 307, for
instance and it’s like running into an old girlfriend who, since you last
saw her, has had three children, cut her hair, eaten all the pies and given
up.
Its predecessor, the 309, wasn’t the prettiest car ever made but it was always
up for a party. The 307, you just know, is always thinking about the
babysitter and having to get up at seven to make the children’s breakfast.
Partly, this is our fault, because when a market-research woman with a
clipboard stops us in the street and asks if we’d like a bigger car we think
“yes” in the same way that we’d like a bigger house and a bigger penis.
Actually, though, the last thing we want is a bigger car because it will be
harder to park, slower, less fun to drive and less economical. But because
we said yes, Peugeot has responded by making the 307 absolutely enormous.
Then there’s the problem with equipment. Back in the days of the 205 you had
to wind your own windows down and you needed arms like giant redwoods to
turn the steering wheel. Now, though, you expect not just power assistance
but satellite navigation and cruise control and parking sensors too.
So the price is going up as well. Then we get to the question of safety.
Because you expect to be able to hit a tree at 40 and walk away, our cars
now have a latticework of cross-members like RSJs under their huge bodies.
Which adds weight.
Then there’s the roof. With an old convertible you got a strip of canvas, but
nowadays you demand a metal top that folds away at the touch of a button.
That means, oh, I don’t know, 17 electric motors, and that in turn means
even more fat.
So we end up with the Peugeot 307CC you see here, a car that weighs a fifth of
a ton more than the hatchback version and which costs over £20,000 if you
fit a couple of extras. And £18,300 if you don’t.
Furthermore, even I felt lost and little in there. You sit behind a giant
steering wheel and a massive dash looking out through a windscreen that you
would swear they got from a coach, thinking that you have inadvertently
found yourself in Gulliver’s weekend sportster.
Except it’s not even remotely sporty. Because of the sheer size and the
monstrous 1½ ton bulk, the poor old 2 litre twin-cam engine is completely
out of its depth. Nought to 60, for instance takes more than 10 seconds and
that makes it slower than a 1.8 litre Kia Shuma. Which in turn is slower
than an asthmatic pensioner running across a ploughed field in muddy
wellies.
It’s not just the speed that suffers either. Moving so much extra weight
around needs fuel, a lot of fuel. So don’t expect much more than 25mpg.
And as a little bit of glaze on the cherry on top of the already pretty horrid
cake, no car that is the size and weight of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier
is going to cock a rear wheel in the bends and bring a little sunshine to
your trudge to work. In short, it’s going to handle like a dead dog.
Now I should make it plain, at this point, that all cars have become too heavy
and too thirsty and too big in recent years. But Peugeot’s descent into
middle age is sadder than all the others because its cars used to be so
good.
No matter. Accepting that all the cars in this class are as vast and as
unwieldy as a City Hoppa bus, let’s stick to the here and now and decide
whether the 307CC is worth your money.
Well, first of all the cabin is extremely well trimmed, especially if you go
for pale grey leather seats and a black carpet. Couple this effect with the
splashes of aluminium that are to be found on the centre console and on the
steering wheel and it’s a bit like being in David Sullivan’s bathroom. Only
the car’s bigger.
Then there’s the ride, which is as comfortable as spending the evening on a
marshmallow bed with Vanessa Feltz. There is no pothole yet conceived by
even the wettest dream of a council’s transport department, no ridge and no
speed bump capable of unsettling the Pug’s featherbed progress.
So, two really good things then. The cabin is a nice place to sit and the
comfort is truly excellent. And that, I’m afraid, is that. We’re at the top
of the rollercoaster’s uphill climb, perched at the point where all is quiet
and you wish you’d never got on the damn thing in the first place. But you
did and now it’s a terrifying downhill blast all the way to the end.
Yes, you can fold the Mercedes-style roof away at up to 6mph, but what good’s
that? When are you ever going 6mph? And when it’s there you can’t get
anything in the boot, and when it’s not you have terrible wind noise on the
motorway. And getting it there takes 30 seconds.
Then there’s the space in the back. Or rather there isn’t. For such a massive
car the legroom is pitiful, and apropos of nothing in particular you need a
PhD to operate all the features on the key.
Worst of all, though, is the styling. From the front it just looks big, but
from all other angles it really doesn’t work at all. On balance, I think
Peugeot should go back to using Pininfarina to style its cars and ditch Ray
Charles. The back end really is grotesque, as snappy and as zingy as a
melted hot water bottle.
And on top of all this the performance remains woeful even when you’re past
60mph, the handling is dreary, there’s a cheapness to most of the fixtures
and fittings, and Peugeots rarely do well in surveys about reliability. I
don’t think there’s any point going on, really. The coffin lid is firmly
nailed down. This is not a good car.
Happily, Renault has a similar hard soft top coming onto the market next week.
I’m expecting it to be better.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Peugeot 307CC
Engine type: Four-cylinder, 1994cc
Power: 138bhp at 6000rpm
Torque: 143 lb ft at 4100rpm
Transmission: Five-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Suspension: (front) reversed Macpherson struts with anti-roll
bar (rear) deformable crossmember, hydraulic dampers
Tyres: 205/55 R16
Fuel: 34.4mpg (combined) CO2 194g/km
Acceleration: 0 to 62mph: 10.3sec
Top speed: 129mph
Price: £18,300
Verdict: Overweight, oversized and without the personality to compensate
