Peugeot 208 GTI: Red Hot Chili Peugeot

21 February 2019 Redazione News, Tested

PEUGEOT 208 GTI

RED HOT CHILI PEUGEOT

Words by Marco Rallo

Photos by Ilario Villani

My relationship with hot-hatches is something special. A punctual journey back in time to those wonderful days when my driving license was fresh and I was spending entire days looking for my first new car – the one that would have replaced the rusty one with which I grinded my early kilometers. Compact sports cars have always combined the two basic points of a car: the sense of freedom and driving pleasure, all without costing a kidney and being perfectly exploitable even when it would not be possible to call into question their aggressive side. So finding me face to face with the Peugeot 208 GTI is more than a journey in time, especially if you – like me – were lucky enough to get behind the wheel of the legendary 205 GTI.

Different years, diesel models were not as powerful as today and these little rockets were the young response to those supercars that for most of us would have remained just a dream. Once again the simple suffix GTI makes clear that it is not a lazy hatchback, but adds to the cute look of the little Frenchie an extra dose of chili in the form of a 1.6cc turbocharged 4-cylinder with 208 horses. You read correctly, above a featherweight of just 1.235kg, we have more than two hundred horses and the best part is that you do not miss anything. The GTI maintains the comfort of a traditional 208, four seats, a more than discreet trunk and, to the delight of purists, a 6-speed manual transmission. In short, it seems to be in front of the perfect recipe for fun, there is nothing left to do but heading for one of those twisty roads and understand if decades later, what we need is still a good chassis and an engine bright enough to make us shake our legs if we enter through corners with too much confidence.

Right, the 208 GTI doesn’t scream what it really is. There are GTI badges scattered inside and outside and some differences like the chrome profile over the front bumper, side skirts, a double exhaust and a spoiler hanging from the rear glass, but in the end to distinguish it from afar is not so obvious. A whole other speech comes as soon as the 1.6 starts to breathe, which while idling emits a pleasant sound that suggests that soon thereafter there will be a lot of animosity. I get on board and despite the small overall size of the car, I am welcomed by a spacious interior and which does not lack anything, including a 7-inch touch screen, dual-zone climate controls and – as anticipated at the beginning of this review – a good old fashioned manual gearbox, which together with the clutch pedal and a chassis that is logically stiffer than the sensible counterparts, makes it reactive and ready to jump from one corner to the other without having to ask twice.

It is precisely its behavior on winding roads that allowed me to discover how this GTI is able to wear the shoes of a real sports car. The 1.6 is always ready and when the needle of the tachometer touches 3,000 revs, something like 300 Nm of torque are released, always putting the front wheels under test, without however accentuating understeer or wasting time spinning. Grip is excellent and despite the height of the car body is not as reduced as that of a traditional sports car, even body roll is minimal. Here, maybe the aspect that surprises me most of the 208 GTI is precisely its reactivity: the 208 horses and a very low weight allow it to move with agility, gain speed and keep it both in a straight line and in the middle of a corner, more likely, you’ll find yourself keeping the throttle down, trying to approach its very limits. At this point I never found myself having to make sudden corrections and indeed I played by letting the front sliding a bit coming out of certain bends (turning off traction control) and learned to know more deeply the aggressive soul of the great grandchild of my old ‘Pug 205.

Although it is not a weapon born for shots at the traffic lights, it proves to burn the 0-100 kph in 6 seconds and a half and reach a maximum speed of 230 per hour, which for a hatchback of this size is something extraordinary. The gearbox is precise, as the pedals and the steering wheel, which in perfect Peugeot style is smaller, lower than usual and with the flat lower portion of the crown. Getting confidence with it takes a moment, while you will soon notice that the performance side does not affect the importance of living with a more relaxed car suitable to carry you around every day of the week, even those where you leave your right foot to rest. In my opinion, if it only had been developed on a somewhat more aggressive line and restrictions allowed the engine a spicier and less progressive delivery, it would really be a hot dish. As it is, however, remains an exceptional hot hatch seasoned with some red hot chili pepper that is at ease pretty much everywhere and especially on a beautiful guts-wrenching road.