Peugeot 208 GTI car review – ‘It’s gunning for the boy racer market’

It could be from an 80s film about some neets who steal a car

There will always be something ludicrous about the two-tone car. It makes you look as if you've taken its decorative aspect too literally, and think it's a handbag. But if you're going to have two colours, black and red are at least mischievous and not twee. And the Peugeot 208 needs to look like that: it's gunning for the boy racer market, but its shape doesn't really give that away. Only the headlight clusters at the front look modern, curved blinking eyes echoed in a near-symmetrical low light. Otherwise, no offence, it could be from a 1980s film about some neets who steal a car - if it weren't for the colourway. Often I couldn't find it in a car park, because I couldn't remember which end was which colour or, for that matter, which way I'd parked. But I filed that under "my problem".

The cabin looks sleek, and then you sit down. The seats are low and hard, there is very little cushioning, inside or out, and road shocks ring through you like the starting gun at a poorly attended sports day. The positioning of the wheel, bizarrely, obscured the speedometer, so I could tell how fast I was going only by disapproving looks. The 1.6 litre turbo-charged engine is generous for the car size, but in the city you felt the lag on the turbo more than the turbo itself. Accelerating off the lights wasn't as much fun as you'd think.