| First Drive | Bournemouth, England | Peugeot 308 CC |
The whole folding electric hard top thing is so widespread now that it's easy to forget it's a fairly modern phenomenon, and that Peugeot brought it to the mass market as recently as the
206 CC. Before the year 2000, if you fancied the apparently win-win combination of open air motoring in the summer but a rigid metal roof in the winter, your solitary option was the relatively expensive Mercedes SLK.
But then Peugeot's maverick origami roof chariot minced along, so that people on more humble means - say, hairdressers, for instance - could get the same thrills for less. However, so keen was Peugeot to get a clever roof squeezed into its popular supermini, it forgot about one minor detail: that cars are only useful if people can actually fit inside them properly. Oops. So, along came the
307 CC, which had the same sort if roof but a bit more space. The 308 CC is that car's replacement.
In the Metal
With its top down the 308 CC is striking for two reasons: it looks markedly like the 307 CC it replaces, for a start, but it's also actually just striking. As coupé-convertible conversions go, the Peugeot probably stands alone in looking like it was designed to look that way from the ground up, rather than an awkward bastardisation of a family hatch. The overly lengthy jutting rump remains, on account of the need to stow the two-piece roof, but the 308 is a sharper and more aggressive take on the theme started by its forebear. It could probably do without the incongruous rear diffuser, though.
In the cabin it's largely standard
308 hatch fare, although Peugeot's efforts to major on quality this time around have paid off: apart from a pair of slightly raggedy A-pillar tops when the roof is down, the interior is a soft touch party befitting a car costing north of £20k. There's also an optional leather dash fascia (for about £800 over the cost of leather seats), which we'd nudge any 308 CC buyer towards - it sends a mid-level hatch dashboard well into proper executive territory, like the office junior turning up to work one day in an Oswald Boateng suit.
What you get for your Money
The starting point is £19,495 for a Sport spec 1.6-litre petrol model with 118bhp and a manual gearbox. For that you get 16-inch alloys, front fogs, a half-decent stereo with controls on the wheel, air conditioning, a remotely locking glove box, six airbags and a myriad of safety acronyms. Basically, you get enough. SE, though - which Peugeot reckons 60 percent of customers will plump for - adds an inch to the diameter of the rims, automates wipers and lights, controls the climate, controls the cruise and upgrades the stereo. Top whack GT trim makes the rims even bigger, the stereo even louder, your neck even warmer (thanks to Peugeot's Airwave neck heating vents in the front seats), your hair less ruffled (because the optional wind break is thrown in) and the seats more leathery. In all models the roof goes up in 20 seconds.
A choice of three petrol engines and two turbodiesels power the CC. Add a 148bhp THP petrol option with a six-speed manual 'box and a 138bhp THP with a six-speed auto to the aforementioned base petrol option and you've got the unleaded line-up. Oil based power comes in either 108bhp or 138bhp forms, with the latter available as a manual or auto. If you're wondering, the most you'll pay for a 308 CC without recourse to the options list is £24,295 for a GT diesel. So, add satnav, some nicer leather and that delicious cow skin dashboard and you can comfortably be knocking on 30 grand's door. Is it worth that? It's priced competitively, with a standard spec sheet shaming those of an equivalent Audi or VW, and it actually runs the Germans surprisingly close for quality.
Driving it
...is better than we thought it might be, fortunately. But, as you'd expect, it's compromised as both a coupé and a cabriolet. Let's deal with the former first: an involving driving machine this ain't. The steering starts off all slack at the first few inches of travel from the centre, but turn in a bit more and it tightens up all of a sudden to the point of feeling over-sharp. It's too light and has no feel to speak of either, so the whole issue of enthusiastic cornering is all a bit wacky and difficult to judge, frankly. Not a good start. Then there's the ride, which is fidgety and too firm, even though there's simultaneously too much body roll. That's a bit strange. The driving position isn't great either, because the pedals are set too high and it also suffers from the same over-sensitive throttle and sharp, juddery clutch as the hatch in manual form. And with the roof down the body vibrates like a good, old school cabrio's should. Not a lot, as Debbie McGee's millionaire husband would say, but it's noticeable.
Still, the whole experience is a cut above that of the 307 CC, so it's not as bad as the sum of the criticisms we're just levelled at it at all. It's comfortable in its natural habitat - i.e. in town, at low speeds - mostly because the seats are lovely and comfy. All round visibility is good as well, and with the roof up or down it has a nice, roomy feel. Basically, if you don't assume it's a sports car it's as composed and enjoyable as you'd want your posing wagon to be. For those reasons our pick is actually the 138bhp diesel (or the HDi 140 FAP, as is its official designation) with...wait for it... the auto' box. Forget about driving this thing; just get in, get the top down, set the slush box to 'D' and off you go. And pejorative though the word 'slush' is, Pug's auto is as quick and hassle-free an auto as you could hope for and the diesel's plentiful torque and quiet nature makes this a relaxed cruiser. We liked it.
Worth Noting
The French maker hopes to shift 5,000 of these per year in the UK. To quantify that number, between 2004 and 2007 Pug sold about 6,000 307 CCs every year, so it doesn't seem unreasonable. However, Peugeot was slightly sheepish in venturing that target, hedging its bets by citing the current gloomy car sales epoch; it probably knows it won't sell that many. To be honest, at the moment you'd be forgiven for thinking a car like this is doomed from the start - figures show that a chunk of 308 CC customers will be couples whose kids no longer live at home looking for a second 'trinket' car. In other words, it's an 'unnecessary' purchase of the type that could easily be reigned in during a recession.
Then again, Peugeot is the market leader for CC-type cars by some margin - selling nearly twice as many of them in Europe as its nearest competitor, VW, in a market of almost 200,000 total sales. The addition of a lower-powered diesel this time around will help boost sales, but it's a sign of the times that even carmakers are being honest now about vastly reduced sales numbers. It's a worry, but at the same time it's actually quite refreshing - and it will hopefully benefit you and me by driving prices down significantly to stimulate the market.
Summary
Peugeot is well versed in making this sort of car and it really shows. The 308 CC is a mostly comfortable cruiser that looks good with the top down, but for the majority of the year is also a spacious, safe and practical (albeit slightly ugly) coupé. The 465-litre boot is actually bigger than the hatchback's (though of course it's dramatically compromised with the roof inside it) and the CC has achieved a five-star Euro NCAP rating too. Nobody who wants an involving driving car will think twice about this thing, frankly, but it does what it does really well: it's built properly out of good stuff and, most importantly, it has a feel-good factor that means owners will overlook its slightly shaky ride and bizarre steering antics to enjoy some impressively relaxed open top frolicking.
