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Peugeot has really moved forward. Only this week they announced full specs on the new 208 which looks terrific, and I am waiting for the specs/prices of the new 2008 as possible replacement for a company Nissan Juke.
Kia's Xceed looks interesting too (not sure about the Fisher Price coloured plastic trim on the dash) but its an elegant and sleek looking vehicle with a terrific warranty. I test drove the Stonic recently, and while OK, it just looks 'dumpy'.
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Peugeot has really moved forward. Only this week they announced full specs on the new 208 which looks terrific, and I am waiting for the specs/prices of the new 2008 as possible replacement for a company Nissan Juke.
Kia's Xceed looks interesting too (not sure about the Fisher Price coloured plastic trim on the dash) but its an elegant and sleek looking vehicle with a terrific warranty. I test drove the Stonic recently, and while OK, it just looks 'dumpy'.
Test drive the i30N (in either hatch or fastback form) or the Stinger - that'll put a big smile on your face, by all accounts. On both occasions, they got these cars (the Veloceter wasn't really a hot hatch, the i30N certainly is) right first time. Note also the complete lack of problems with Hyundai/Kia's DCT gearbox, compared to all their rivals, who all have, some of whom have ditched them and gone back to TCs or CVTs. Japanese make and the likes of Ford, Vauxhall and the other 'volume' sellers take note, because Hyundai is coming after your markets in a big way.
I agree that Peugeot have made great strides in recent years as regards the engines (especially the petrols) and reliability, let's hope they can sustain that over the coming years (I learned in a Pug 205 1.9D, my cousin owned [before he wrote it off in an accident] the legendary 205 GTI 1.9).
Not so keen on the styling though (inside and out), though the 508 and the forthcoming 208 are very nice looking externally - maybe a sign of things to come? Reputations take a good while to rebuild, especially as regards reliability and the dealership experience. Let's hope that a good portion of their improvements rub off on Vauxhall, assuming they keep production in the UK.
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The 108 already has the option of the non turbo 1.2 Puretech engine.
The turbocharged 1.2 Puretech engines need space for the intercooler & I suspect this is the reason they haven't been squeezed under the 108 bonnet.
Given its market position as a city car, i'm not sure it really needs the turbo engine. It only weighs 865kg, so 82bhp is quite enough to make it amusingly brisk. I have driven the 1.0 version of the Citroen C1 and found it very nippy and great fun.
Having said that, the thought of a car that small and light with 130bhp does sound like a barrel of laughs!.
BTW, according to the specifications section of the 108 (and Citroen C1) on this website, the 1.2 is no longer available and hasn't been since last August.
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“Given its market position as a city car, i'm not sure it really needs the turbo engine. It only weighs 865kg, so 82bhp is quite enough to make it amusingly brisk. I have driven the 1.0 version of the Citroen C1 and found it very nippy and great fun.
Having said that, the thought of a car that small and light with 130bhp does sound like a barrel of laughs!.”
I think PSA are missing a trick here. Think back to the late 90’s and the Saxo VTR/VTS were selling by the truckload thanks to their low cost and strong performance. Yes they’ve the 208 GTi but it’s north of £20k. An affordable and simple yet easy to insure small hot hatch has a market waiting yet almost every manufacturer bar Ford seems to have forgotten. Thus the reason why we see so many high spec Fiesta Ecoboosts with fat wheels etc.
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So nobody aspires to a BMW. continually improving on design, quality, fine engines and transmissions.
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Ok how about ssangyong?
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So nobody aspires to a BMW.
Err, not me anyway!
continually improving on design
IMO BMW have not made a really nice looking car for decades. In fact, quite a few new or current models like the X7 for example, are absolute mingers!. I do like the i3, not that i think it is particularly nice looking, but it is distinctive and different.
quality, fine engines and transmissions.
Some maybe, but plenty of evidence that many are unreliable, just look at the good/bad sections of various BMW's on this website.
Edited by badbusdriver on 11/08/2019 at 11:10
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So nobody aspires to a BMW.
Err, not me anyway
Me neither, wouldn't give you a thankyou for anything of the current range, now an E34 528/535 or E39 with the V8 is a different kettle of fish, and there wasn't much prettier on the road than a E46 coupe.
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So nobody aspires to a BMW.
Err, not me anyway
Me neither, wouldn't give you a thankyou for anything of the current range, now an E34 528/535 or E39 with the V8 is a different kettle of fish, and there wasn't much prettier on the road than a E46 coupe.
I'm afraid i'd be going further back than that GB!. For the 5 series, it would be the E28 M5, and as for outright beauty (excluding the gorgeous but unnatainable for most of us mortals 507 roadster), i'd take an E9 or early E24 (with the slim bumpers and no front or rear spoilers).
Re the E28, i found it quite amusing when Simon Pegg, in the Latest Mission Impossible film (the star of the film for me was definately the E28!), made a comment about how small it was!. Once upon a time, that would have been considered quite a big car, shows how cars in general have become so much bigger!.
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IMO BMW have not made a really nice looking car for decades.
Agreed. IMO eight decades. The BMW 328 roadster was the inspiration for one of Jaguar's best looking cars, the XK120 roadster.
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Ok how about ssangyong?
I don't mind Ssangyong, but you could hardly call the company 'on fire'. Their sales may have improved through the introduction of the Tivoli, but even with that warranty, they are still very much small players.
Edited by badbusdriver on 11/08/2019 at 11:13
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Nobody's mentioned Tesla yet !
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Nobody's mentioned Tesla yet !
To me, they are a Ponzi scheme if ever I heard.
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I think PSA are missing a trick here. Think back to the late 90’s and the Saxo VTR/VTS were selling by the truckload thanks to their low cost and strong performance. Yes they’ve the 208 GTi but it’s north of £20k. An affordable and simple yet easy to insure small hot hatch has a market waiting yet almost every manufacturer bar Ford seems to have forgotten. Thus the reason why we see so many high spec Fiesta Ecoboosts with fat wheels etc.
Quite right SLO.
Going back to the Peugeot 108, Lee Power says he thinks the turbo version of the 1.2 was not put in the car due to there not being enough space, but I'm not sure i agree with that. When Citroen's version, the C1, first came out, it was available with a 4 cyl 1.4 turbo diesel. If that could fit, i'm sure a 1.2 3 cyl turbo could also fit. I think it had more to do with peugeot and Citroen just feeling (sadly) there was no market for a 108 or C1 hot hatch. But yes, a 1.2 turbo Peugeot 108 or Citroen C1 could easily have been a replacement for the sporting versions of the Citroen Saxo/Peugeot 106.
The motoring press are all singing the praises of the Up GTI, but to my mind it is too expensive, and more importantly, too heavy. While the bigger and more accomodating Suzuki Swift Sport with its 140bhp 1.4 turbo 4 cyl engine tips the scales at 970kg, the tiny 1.0 3 cyl 115bhp Up GTI weighs 25kg more than that!. I can't understand how VW have managed to make it that heavy, it really shouldn't weigh more than 900kg.
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BBD, i was always under the impression the 1.4 unit in the C1 was non turbo, perhaps the main reason it was so unloved, wouldn't pull you out of bed.
It was the great success of sporty 106's that made me think a turbo'd 108 would be a winner, we ran a C2 VTS with the 1.6HDi for a while, remapped to iron out the awful low engine speed lag, a superb little car totally ruined by its ridiculously harsh suspension.
I don't get why decent engines in such cars almost always means stupidly stiff springs and massive wheels with elastic band tyres, most of us don't drive on smooth roads or at the limits of the cars adhesion, many of us just want a car that is effortless in its performance whatever its size.
Edited by gordonbennet on 11/08/2019 at 12:06
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BBD, i was always under the impression the 1.4 unit in the C1 was non turbo, perhaps the main reason it was so unloved, wouldn't pull you out of bed.
Not absolutely 100% certain GB(!), but i'm pretty sure it was a turbo, just in a very low state of tune. 55bhp, versus 67-70 for the usual applications in the Fiesta, 206, C3 etc (there was also a shortlived 16v version with 92bhp if memory serves). it (the C1 diesel) did have a reasonable slug of torque though, with 96lb/ft available at 1750 rpm.
But i think the main reason for it not being that popular was just that the 1.0 petrol was much cheaper to buy, was more than economical enough for its intended city car role, had much better performance and handled better (the diesel engine was pretty light for a diesel, but still a chunk heavier than the 1.0 3 pot, so understeered a lot!).
Edited by badbusdriver on 11/08/2019 at 12:17
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The turbocharged 1.2 Puretech engines take up more physically space then the non turbo version. It would be far to much a squeeze to fit that complete power unit & the required intercooler that goes with it under a C1 / 108 bonnet.
I'm sure someone in the tuning world could possibly do it but it would be to much hassle for PSA to bother with.
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“BBD, i was always under the impression the 1.4 unit in the C1 was non turbo, perhaps the main reason it was so unloved, wouldn't pull you out of bed.”
It was turbocharged and took up more space than the 3cyl 1.2 does with or without a turbo. The firm just don’t see a market for it.
The reason the diesel didn’t sell was that it wasn’t much more economical than the 3cyl Daihatsu designed 1.0 petrol yet cost more and was worse to drive. A diesel city car makes little sense.
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I can't understand how VW have managed to make it that heavy, it really shouldn't weigh more than 900kg.
To give punters the perception that it is solid and bombproof. "The doors shut with a beautiful thunk".
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I agree Peugeot are definitely revived and producing innovative / desirable products. VAG still appear to sell plenty of cars and most are pretty good it’s just their attitude to design faults and customers that let them down.
I would love to say Jaguar but I don’t think they have the quality control standards required for a premium brand.
Mercedes appear to be selling a lot more cars than they used too, not to my taste though. BMW were looking quite innovative about five years ago but appear to have stagnated.
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Is it the forum's sometimes negative view of Honda's driving experience that largely excludes them from a discussion about desirable cars?
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Is it the forum's sometimes negative view of Honda's driving experience that largely excludes them from a discussion about desirable cars?
Well the post is not really about 'desirable' cars, though it has kind of gone off on various side tracks which include desirability. And while i am absolutely delighted with our Jazz (including how it drives), i'm not naive enough to consider it a desirable car!. Bigger question, from your point of view, are ANY of the Honda range desirable?. I think i'd have to say no. I don't like the looks of the Civic, the HR-V and CR-V are both worthy and reliable, but also a bit bland. Which leaves the NSX, which i guess probably is desirable, if you like your sports cars to be 'techno missiles'!.
With regards to the actual driving experience, certainly going by the motoring press, the Honda Civic Type R is pretty much the best hot hatch out there (if not actually the fastest), so assuming you could live with its looks(!), there are no qualms about how good that particular Honda is to drive!.
As to the question of the post, is Honda 'on fire', as a company?, no.
Edited by badbusdriver on 11/08/2019 at 20:08
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I don't know which car company is on "fire" more like which car company would you set "fire" to!
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To Engineer Andy.
Why do you say Tesla is a Ponzi scheme. I'm not buying one but son in law has put down his deposit.
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The C1 diesel was killed off as someone worked out in total running costs it would take around 240K miles of driving to actually see any benefit of buying the diesel one over the petrol.
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To Engineer Andy.
Why do you say Tesla is a Ponzi scheme. I'm not buying one but son in law has put down his deposit.
Because it appears to me that Musk and the other Directors keep asking investors to sink more and more money into the firm, and they make no profit, in fact keep making huge losses.
If that doesn't keep happening, they'll soon run out of money. Unlike Amazon, when it didn't make a profit for a number of years, Tesla has a lot (and growing) number of rivals in the EV market, the vast majority of whom have a big advantage given how long they've been making cars and have a lot better finances to develop their cars.
If they do go bust soon, your son-in-law may find it difficult to have his car maintained or find spare parts, plus, assuming a firm would want to take them over, he might find the Tesla-only charging stations might start costing a LOT of money to use, making the car far less viable.
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Whilst not knowing the financial history of Tesla, I cannot see a future for electric cars unless forced on the world population. The whole climate change thing is like King Canute trying to stop the tide coming in! For the UK we are a small country compared with the rest of the world with no significant land mass so how can we possibly make much difference to climate change. Only the other day it was reported that some 2400 air flights flew into Mecca for a religious ceremony at what cost to so called carbon savings. The polar regions are reported to be ravaged by wild fires and this coupled with other large fires cannot help the situation.
Perhaps the biggest worry is the continued loss of the Amazon rain forest. It is also been reported that scientists are contemplating seeding the stratosphere with dust to reflect the sun's rays back into space as a way to cool us down.
There is also concern for rising sea levels, but a thought occurred to me. They are pumping all this oil out of the ground and sea bed which must leave a ruddy big hole. What will they do with this void.
Climate change is and as always been a natural evolving pattern of the Earths history and I cannot see how humans can change this>
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Climate change is and as always been a natural evolving pattern of the Earths history and I cannot see how humans can change this>
You can't see what is in front of your face?
Climate has will always vary but the change that is happening is being pushed along by humans and all the scientific consensus shows that.
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Climate change is and as always been a natural evolving pattern of the Earths history and I cannot see how humans can change this>
Humans can reduce the burning of fossil fuels, which liberates CO2 and reduce consumption of ruminants which releases methane _, for a start?
Also stop burning forest areas e.g. Amazon or Indonesian rain forests.
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Elton John and the rest of the rich with more money than sense lending out their private Jets and yacht to their friends are a big help. I expect they are all consuming no end of high end steaks as they aimlessly cross the plant. Then at the end of the day they have so much money that they generously offset a few carbon credits and everything is hunky dory. What a joke!
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Elton John and the rest of the rich with more money than sense lending out their private Jets and yacht to their friends are a big help. I expect they are all consuming no end of high end steaks as they aimlessly cross the plant. Then at the end of the day they have so much money that they generously offset a few carbon credits and everything is hunky dory. What a joke!
A great rebuttal argument to Sir Elton of John in today's Telegraph (sorry, behind the paywall) by Madeline Grant.
Sorry to continue the off-topic conversation.
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