Living with the Peugeot 508 GT Fastback

• Welcome: Gallic Bred
• Part 2: Precious cargo
• Part 3: Changing hands

Welcome: Gallic Bred

Price as tested: $57,490
This month: 551km @ 9.6L/100km
Total: 551km @ 9.6L/100km

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Regular readers may have noticed a pattern starting to develop among the Wheels long-term fleet. Recently, nearly everything has hailed from South Korea or been an SUV; more often than not, it’s been both. The arrival of Felipe’s angular Lexus UX last issue provided some welcome diversity, but this month I’m here to shake things up even further. Enter the Peugeot 508 GT Fastback; a car that’s about as far removed from ‘mainstream’ and ‘conventional’ as you can get.

One glance is all you need to know that this car is proudly individual. It really is striking to behold, especially when bright sun hits this shade of Celebes Blue paint (a no-cost option), and the 508 isn’t only a refreshing respite from the swathes of SUVs on our roads, but it looks nothing like any of its more conservative rivals (think Skoda Octavia, Volkswagen Passat, etc).

People stare, most smile, and nearly everything about driving the 508 feels an event. The doors are frameless, the cabin is even more spectacular than the exterior, and despite the almost heavy-handed attempt for everything to seem modern and edgy, the traditional French traits of comfort and suppleness are there, just below the surface.

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As first impressions go, then, the Pug has impressed, but first impressions aren’t the currency of long-term tests. What we’re interested in here are second, third and fourth impressions. So let’s dig a little deeper because a few of my opinions are already beginning to shift after only a few weeks.

The most obvious mental swing concerns the driving position. Like almost all modern Peugeots, the 508 employs the French brand’s iCockpit twin-screen layout which requires you to drop the steering wheel in your lap to ensure a clear view of the clocks.

My natural preference is to have the wheel as high as possible, so that in itself required some adjustment, but compounding the strangeness is just how small the wheel itself is. The diameter feels puny and it seemed odd to be steering a big car with such a small and low tiller. But as the days rolled past, I began to warm to the alien ergonomics. The steering is light and the rate of response is quick and natural, so you soon adjust to sweeping through round-a-bouts with a roll of the wrists. And the seating position is fantastic.

You can get nice and low and the chairs are soft, generously padded and include a massage function.

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I’m slowly learning the idiosyncrasies of the cabin, too. Apple CarPlay works seamlessly and I love the finger-like hotkeys below the main screen for important functions, although there are a few oddities: the heated seats, for example, stay in the same setting as you left them between trips, yet the auto wipers need to be activated every time it starts to rain. And the carbonfibre inserts are hard on the doorcards but are soft touch on the dash. You won’t start or stop the 508 by mistake either. Unlike most push-button starts which respond instantly, the 508’s button requires an extended hold for a few seconds.

Still, it’s a richly finished and well-equipped cabin, if perhaps not quite as large as I first thought. This is where we get to the second opinion shift. At first blush, the low and wide 508 plays the optical illusion of looking quite large. The cabin, too, feels spacious from the front pews and the boot (accessed via the auto liftback tailgate) seems generous to the eye at 487L. Slip into the back seat, however, and that sense of space evaporates.

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This generation of 508, which moved onto Peugeot’s excellent EMP2 platform, is actually 80mm shorter than the old version. And while that sweeping roofline does wonders for its silhouette, the same can’t be said for rear headroom. Things are snug back there for anyone over 6ft and while knee room is adequate, it’s not on the same level as those aforementioned rivals. And the boot fills up worryingly quickly. Plonk a pram back there and there’s scant room for anything else.

So it’s a beguiling thing, the Peugeot 508. Some cars are open books that lay bare all of their qualities within minutes of driving them, but others reveal their strengths and weaknesses more slowly. This 508 is certainly the latter, but if first impressions of the perky 1.6-litre turbo petrol, fluid dynamics and lithe chassis are any gauge, there’s still plenty of goodness to look forward to.

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Part 2: Precious cargo

This month: 696km @ 7.9L/100km
Total: 5485km @ 8.8L/100km

They say “you never forget your first…” Never, I think to myself as I glance at the freshly fitted baby seat and the Pug’s open rear door, has a cliché been so wrong. My newborn, who is waiting patiently to embark on her first ever car ride, won’t remember this journey at all. But I will. In fact, I’ve been preparing for weeks. And so has the Peugeot.

Fitting the baby seat was our first task. Now I’d heard all of the horror stories. Friends frequently complain of skinned knuckles, twisted belts and fiddly buckles but I encountered none of these with the 508. Once I’d located and exposed the deep-set ISOFIX anchorage points, it was a simple process of clicking in the clips and tightening the top tether. Job done.

The issue was things felt a little… squishy. With the child seat set in its rear-facing newborn position, we had to move the power-sliding front passenger seat forward which means the knees of anyone approaching six-foot now brush the dash. It’s fine for short journeys but after a few hours I reckon I’d start to feel a little uncomfortable.

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It’s snug in the rear seat, too. This is where my wife sits to keep an eye on the kiddo and her primary complaint is a lack of toe and knee room, which makes it tricky to cross and un-cross her legs. And that sharply raked roofline, which looks so striking, means the aperture for placing the baby in and out of the child seat is worryingly narrow. Accidentally bumping a head feels a real possibility.

So there’s room for improvement but, like the front, the rear cushion is supple and comfortable and back passengers do score plenty in the way of amenities. Rear air vents, a folding central armrest with two cup holders and two USB ports are all present and accounted for.

And the 508 has impressed elsewhere this month. The steering, which is quick and light around town, is a pleasant and fluid surprise at speed. And the ride, which can feel a little sudden over sharp bumps, also improves with some pace under the tyres. I’m yet to properly explore any drive mode beyond Normal and Comfort but the 1.6-litre turbo four is also an eager companion that delivers punchy performance that feels greater than its on-paper outputs of 165kW/300Nm suggest.

The only blemish is the occasional intrusion of some driveline shunt. Picking the throttle back up after rolling into an intersection or after a speed bump can give a small delay and an abrupt jolt as drive is taken back up. Hardly a deal breaker but not ideal when you’re trying to make smooth progress on your newborn’s first car ride, whether she remembers it or not…

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Part 3: Changing hands

Author: Kathryn Fisk

This month: 298km @ 9.1L/100km
Total: 5845km @ 8.9L/100km

It may not have found its forever home just yet, but the Pug has at least for now got new digs – leaving the custody of former editor Alex Inwood and coming to stay with moi for a while.

It ticked off ‘bring home newborn baby’ from its task list with Inwood and has now moved on to the next challenge – accommodating a three-strong family with a toddler in the midst of his terrible twos. Luckily for me, he’s not so terrible after all and he’s a sucker for a new car.

On first sight, the Peugeot is impressive to behold and looks classy inside and out, thanks to its sloping roof, chrome accents and Nappa leather trim. It would be perfectly at home on the driveway of a business exec keen on standing out from the crowd.

Alas though, the 508’s je ne sais quoi has not curried favour with the youngest member of the pack, who is big on anything with a sunroof at the minute. I, too, have to agree that while it turns heads driving around town, it isn’t particularly practical for a young family.

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While boot space is sufficient to carry out day-to-day tasks, disappointingly, space in the cabin is at a premium for what, at first glance, appears a large car.
In addition to Alex’s wife’s encounter in the second row, I’ve also found the space around the driver to be on the tighter side of things, with simple actions such as reaching to operate the rear window switches uncomfortable, especially on my elbow.

I have to agree that getting children in and out can be tricky, and bending over multiple times due to its low-slung body style might get old quickly.

In fairness, however, the powered tailgate is very much appreciated when you’ve got your hands full – figuratively and literally – and dark privacy glass on the rear windows comes in handy for sunny days too, protecting young ones’ skin from those damaging UV rays and mitigating the need to panic when they’ve fallen asleep on a journey with no hat or sunscreen on.

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This month we’ve also had time to get to know the infotainment system and controls a bit better, but what initially appears to be a sleek and sophisticated set-up has some functionality short-falls.

The system, operated through the 10-inch centrally-mounted touchscreen, is a faff to use – there’s no central menu, you can’t listen to the radio if your phone is plugged in (because it defaults to your music app) without using the voice command function, and there’s relatively limited choice in what you can ask it to do. Even at maximum brightness the display is dull.

Furthermore, by switching between profiles you can easily end up with everything in French – meaning you’ll need to desperately rack your brain for anything useful from those long-gone high-school lessons to help you get back on the straight and narrow.