Regardless of Peugeot’s decision to continue with a second generation RCZ or not, the car will remain in history as one of their boldest modern propositions. It looks good, drives pretty well and you can now get it with 266 hp, in R form (pictured).
Even so, its future is not certain, as the boss of PSA, Carlos Tavares, wants to focus exclusively on a simplification of the range and sporty variants of core models.
Apparently, he is actually dead serious about the reduction of models from 45 to 26 and building all of them on variations of only two platforms. This will bring costs right down, but is it really what Peugeot wants?
Are company officials blind to the fact that the brand needs a halo car, a replacement for the RCZ, a car that made quite the splash when it was launched? Culling it and concentrating on rebadged hybrid econoboxes and crossovers is the same kind of tactic Indesit would adopt were they to stop making fridges and start making cars instead – was not meant as a compliment as it denotes a lack of passion for making cars and a much bigger passion for doing business by any means necessary.
And it gets worse – Peugeot always teases us with amazing concepts that it rarely follows up on. The RCZ was the one that slipped through and it not only looks quite cool but is also a genuine performance machine that can hold its own on the track, a place new Peugeots hardly ever visit these days…
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