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Peugeot RCZ R: Rated R Breakfast
PEUGEOT RCZ-R
RATED R BREAKFAST
Words: Alessandro Marrone
Photography: Ilario Villani
Who said that only certain dinners can be sort of unconventional? To combine business with pleasure is something that makes us feel good, it makes us realize that we have added a bit ‘of fun in what could be the boring daily routine. Not that cruising around in a sports car with nearly 300 horses on some terrific road is a demanding job – let alone if I have a professional photographer with me, a warm sun that seems wanting to extend a summer long gone from the calendar and liters and liters of petrol. This time we’ve chosen Mount Fasce, a mountain road overlooking the Genoese hills with stunning views, but above all the chance to drive on a curvy road at the same time as fast as pretty much nothing else close to it. Avoided the “high season”, we arranged to meet for a day of late November driving, but not without having properly filled the stomach, or rather, have prepared the ultimate breakfast possible. I leave home in the early morning, with the sun that still has to rise and with the doubt about which weather we’ll find for this wild shooting day. Appointment scheduled in Recco since I forced Ilario (the photographer) to endure a diet of the most typical cheese “focaccia”, that well-known in Recco to be precise. Today we do not care about fitness and stuff like that – after having seen Tossini’s bakery we thought we’d avoid the restaurant for lunch and immerse ourselves into a sea of calories and fat as if the world would end the following day. Gaining weight would never be so nice. One of the hardest aspects was certainly to resist the temptation to taste it when still hot and instead stick it in a bag, hoping that the curves of Mount Fasce and the 270hp of the Peugeot would not end in making it a shapeless thing.
Yeah, actually we are here to test the top of the range model coming out of the French lion garage, the RCZ R, a 2+2 coupe with an unmistakable line that catches the eye of every passer-by and motorists, thanks to that perfect game of black and white contrast with mat pillars and the double bubble roof (like a Zagato model) that seems to extend the rear window toward the front windshield. When it was first introduced many were perplexed, some pointed it as a copy of the Audi TT, but the few who really understood what the RCZ represented dug deeply and decided to give it a chance. Today, after a slight facelift, I have at my disposal the toughest version, thanks to a 1.6 turbocharged pot with 270 horsepower able to put into serious question the power of far more expensive sports cars, and all thanks to a damn actual design. The cabin is spacious and although the two seats in the back will barely host two children, those sitting at front have a lot of space available, on the two racing inspired but extremely comfortable and well finished seats, while the perception of sitting close to the front axle you get observing it from the sides is confirmed the time you close the door and try to reach the seat belt, risking some vertebra by grasping for it as it hangs way back the driving position. The ignition key is old school and so the handbrake lever and the 6-speed gearbox too: large, precise and ready to assist you in the search of the maximum torque available at about 1,900 rpm.
Time to start the engine, time to play the game, without watching the clock – the only thing that matters is the relationship that the tachometer has with the apex of these mountain curves. Everything else is boring, nothing else matters. The RCZ R is solid car, in looks as in the figures that puts into play: it is aesthetically more muscular than its less powerful sisters, it has a fixed rear spoiler, larger 19-inch wheels and R logos scattered here and there, both on the outside and inside of the passenger compartment. The exhaust has two end pipes, rather large in diameter but too quiet for my personal taste, but what matters is that the Torsen front differential knows how to communicate with the horses under the hood, cutting power only when you ask too much to the laws of physics. However, just turn traction control off and games start getting even more serious – there’s no Sport button, there is no R button, the RCZ R is always in R mode, just waiting for you to disconnect your self-preservation and letting you enter corners moving your limits further. Brakes are generous and forgive me even when I enter a couple of corners too fast and too furious, while the suspension scheme is stiff at the right point and makes the chassis perfectly responsive and never nervous. You can try unbalancing it, you can toss it from right to left and it keeps the directionality you want as if it were on rails. Do you really have some doubts left?
Mount Fasce is not such a famous piece of road, but if it has been selected by names such as Ferrari (for the presentation of the California T HS) and any self-respecting biker for a “closed vein” weekend, it must be some valid reasons, right? Visibility is excellent and with today’s sun, the road surface is dry, with a fairly rough asphalt to allow the tires to have an outstanding grip. Fast corners alternate with tight hairpin bends, straights wide enough to enter fifth gear allow you to put to the test your courage and make some hair on your stomach grow quick. Arrived on top we do not stop for more than a few minutes and come back straight where we started, along the road backwards, driving a completely different stretch thanks to a couple of doublings of the same road. Some leaves make a couple of curves slippery and the fact that I turned traction control off allows me to slide the Peugeot handling it easy with a gentle touch on the gas. Down a gear, thrust my right foot and flat as a feline it rushes towards the next corner. Better to stop and catch our breath, maybe I’m not good enough to stand up to this French girl on a road like this. Maybe it is better to open the trunk and eat a slice of Heaven for our stomach, instead of continuing to run along such a bleeding edge. Certainly we couldn’t find a better playground, a road that seems built just for testing a sports car, no matter if front or rear wheel drive because it offers a range of arguments which should be good for at least a different test for each day of the year. The view is priceless and while we slow down the pace I enjoy everything thanks to the wide front glass, another aspect that makes you feel on something racing. Time to take some more pictures, taking advantage of a nice straight line to try acceleration and braking – all impeccable, despite the braking system is starting to give light signs of fading. So we have a well-deserved break, just some minutes and then back to work again until the sun is ready to set.
No matter if you have time available or not, one morning, do yourself a gift and go have breakfast (any excuse is good) on top of Mount Fasce. Drive there as if it were the last thing to do in your life, enjoy the contact with mother nature, something made increasingly difficult by traffic and nowadays’ routine. Turn off the phone and lowered your window, being dragged from the engine sound and the desire to make tires screaming. You will discover, as happened to me, that you’ve never been close to certain limits and that the journey that you thought you had started long ago, is actually only just begun. This awareness is the one that puts us at peace with ourselves, that makes us appreciating the time we have available for our amusement and that makes us proud, when we use it the right way, that way all the sacrifices necessary to get right there are rewarded. At the top, for example. Peugeot has reached its modern automotive peak with the RCZ R, a coupe with a brilliant line and a lot of character, dynamic but at the same time suitable for every day, which makes you forget if the dashboard is still the old one and the retractable sat-nav stands in the way, especially in city traffic. An old school sports car, with performance that on paper seem perfectly normal for a coupe of this segment: 5,9 seconds from 0 to 100 and 250 per hour of top speed, but that translated in the real world – the one made of a mountain road – are the secret ingredients that makes a car your best company for a perfect dinner. Or a breakfast, in this case.
PEUGEOT RCZ R (2015-)
Layout – front-engined, front wheel drive
Engine – 4 cylinder 1.598cc – turbo
Transmission – 6-speed manual gearbox
Power – 271 hp @ 6.000 rpm
329 Nm @ 1.900-5.500 rpm
Weight – 1.280 kg
Acceleration – 5,9 sec.
Top Speed – 249 kph
Price – from € 41.700
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