The Tech-Heavy New 508 Starts Peugeot's March Toward Audi

Peugeot is really cranking up the technology and style for the new 508, as it begins the tough task of trying to become a rival to Audi, BMW and Mercedes
The Tech-Heavy New 508 Starts Peugeot's March Toward Audi

Peugeot has totally reinvented the three-box saloon segment by revealing a brand new 508, which absolutely isn’t a three-box saloon. Honest.

No sir, this is a new ‘fastback’ design. You can tell by the slightly elongated C-pillars, the bases of which have been moved backwards towards the boot lip and effectively shrinking that third stylistic box right down.

The Tech-Heavy New 508 Starts Peugeot's March Toward Audi

We’re joking around, of course, but seriously: it’s a simple saloon with a worthy 487-litre boot. The real fat to chew here is that we’re seeing the first hard evidence that Peugeot is being shunted upmarket, ultimately towards Audi.

Peugeot is already calling itself a “high-end generalist” manufacturer, which says to us that it sees Volkswagen as its closest rival right now. To keep separating the brands and to leave room for Opel/Vauxhall to operate in the mainstream between the quirky and comfortable Citroen (whose equivalent is on the way too) and the premium Peugeot, we’d expect Peugeot to keep pushing towards Audi’s level.

The Tech-Heavy New 508 Starts Peugeot's March Toward Audi

The sharply-dressed new car’s neat styling is heavily Germanic, indicating the way things are going. Then there’s the technology on board, which covers the likes of a 10-inch media screen, a 12.3-inch digital instrument panel and a night vision system. Very S-Class, on paper at least.

Power for the handsome new rep-mobile will come from a range of petrol and diesel engines, starting at 128bhp and reaching a 221bhp peak as a blown petrol. It will be the latest step in something of a renaissance for the brand. After all, all of its recent new cars have been really quite good…

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Comments

Anonymous

Well we had a bunch of 3008 as fleet cars at work and they were all lemons. They used to stop/tuen off at any time on the road without warning.

02/23/2018 - 22:18 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

They had to bring in the country engineer’s from France to found the cause . At the end they couldn’t , so we retired the whole fleet of cars about 2 years earlier .

02/23/2018 - 22:23 |
0 | 0
Rally Maniac (ThePeugeotGuy)

gooooooood. Very goooood,

02/25/2018 - 12:13 |
0 | 0
ismail beygirci

it looks amazing it kinda reminds me old peugeots

02/27/2018 - 05:07 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Reminds me to it most square predecesor. Peugeot is looking good again

03/20/2018 - 19:53 |
0 | 0
The Stig's Bulgarian cousin

The thing with french cars is that you adore ‘em, or you want to destroy every single one you see. But It has beautiful back end though.

05/31/2018 - 20:59 |
0 | 0