New hope for Peugeot

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Not wishing to be outdone by outsiders on home turf, Peugeot is preparing a plethora of products for the Paris Motorshow, almost all aimed at convincing a sceptical world that it’s back in the business of building interesting cars.

There’s the 208GTI, its third and hopefully most successful attempt to replace the fabled 205GTI, a hot version of its hitherto tepid RCZ coupe and a crazy carbon and copper concept called Onyx. I don’t usually dwell on concept cars that will never be built, but this one is worth a moment of your time because, beneath that outlandish skin lies the running gear of its 2011 Le Mans car. As one Peugeot person put it to me, “well it wasn’t as if it was doing anything else”.