One doesn’t really associate the Peugeot brand with track driving, because none of their newer cars were really any special for that up until they launched the first RCZ. That came with a powerful enough 1.6-liter turbocharged engine and a sorted enough chassis to make things fun, being followed by the 208 GTi which shared the same engine and it too was thoroughly entertaining, as we found out when we drove it.
Since then, they’ve also shown an R version of the all-new 308 (in concept form). It gets the same BMW-co-developed 1.6-liter turbocharged unit, but in R trim, it delivers 266 hp and 330 Nm / 243 lb-ft of torque. It promises performance levels that up until now were reserved for 2.0-liter turbocharged hot hatches, with the claimed efficiency benefits of the smaller displacement. The production version of the 308 R would share its basic motor with another car, though, the RCZ R, which itself was previewed as a concept – now we see it for the first time in motion, in Peugeot’s most recently uploaded promo video.
Returning to the first idea of Peugeots and tracks, it seems that the French automaker is trying to change that perception, and this latest video has the RCZ R being driven rather quickly, even getting into some liftoff oversteer situations.
They’re really trying hard to promote it as such, it seems, and the style they adopted, as well as the look of the car give the impression that they’re trying to sell it as a cheaper, front-wheel drive alternative a (poor man’s, if you will) Porsche Cayman – I know it’s a stretch, but it’s not a totally unreasonable idea…
By Andrei Nedelea
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