PEPPY PEUGEOT 308 R CONCEPT APPEARS

Peugeot will unveil its most dramatic, everyday-normal-people concept car at the 2013 Frankfurt International Motor Show next month. The 308 R Concept is based on the new-shape 308, headed for Mzansi in 2014, but seems to be something of a rather crazy French cat.

The 308 is looking very elegant and should be much more attractive to potential buyers of cars like the Golf, Focus, Auris, Astra and the like. Except it’s more, as you can probably tell from the pics. The major striking feature is probably the two-tone red and black body colour, which we think is really unnecessary and almost spoiled the whole car. Thankfully it didn’t, because the rest of the concept is absolutely super.

Double front grille is standard, with the upper one featuring Peugeot’s new family face and full LED headlamps, and the lower being black and sporty. The side mirrors are sharp, made of carbon fibre and almost intrusive, with the rear end opting for simplicity - two almost rhombular tailpipes, LED lights and that’s it. Peugeot fitted the 308 R Concept with 19-inch alloy wheels. We probably won’t be seeing those in the real thing.

Most interesting is the stuff laying beneath the surface, or in this case, bonnet. It’s the famous 1.6-litre 4-cylinder turbo found in numerous other Peugeots, Citroens and MINIs, but with a few extra tricks to give it more than a few extra kicks. Here we mean 201kW at 6000rpm and 330Nm of torque at 1900rpm. Splendid!

Peugeot is on to something here and if they decide to build it – we strongly urge them to – it will go up against the likes of the new Volkswagen Golf R and Renault Megane RS for the first time.