cast your mind back to 2006 - if you're old enough to do that - and the Peugeot 207 had just come out
it was the peugeot 206 plus one and it was plus one in every way - it was
bigger, heavier, fatter and also safer - so on the positive side it was safer
but otherwise possibly a step in the wrong direction for driving dynamics. In 2006 Peugeot
had not yet come out with a GTI version - that was yet to come. So GTI wasn't available at the time of
launch, the closest thing you could buy was this, the car I am in today - the 1.6 turbo GT with 150 brake
horsepower, now a year later in 2007 the GTI would be released, which has 175 horsepower but for that
year this was the hottest 207 you could buy. The engine in this car is the most interesting part
because Peugeot had a little bit of a partnership with BMW at the time and worked with them to
build the engine in this car, essentially the bits that BMW did are the valve timing and the
interesting part which is the turbo, and it's a twin-scroll turbo. Now I was thinking I'll just
quickly look up what a twin-scroll turbo is and I'll explain it to you guys - now it turns out
it's not that simple - not a simple explanation EE: "so what we've got going on here is you take the
large area and you subtract the small area under it that's basically what I'm drawing out here"
JJ: and the result is that this car, max torque is available from 1400 rpm and most of it from
a little over idle so it pulls from from almost any RPM so it definitely improves the drivability
of this car, makes it very easy to drive. The 207 was produced from 2006 through till 2014
this particular model the GT was only made from around 2006 to 2008 so it was quite an unusual car
the GT was also possible to buy with a diesel engine but that that didn't really suit the the
aspirations of the GT line because it was only 110 horsepower so would have been quite slow so
in terms of performance if you're after the diesel then don't listen to any
anything I say about performance here because it's not going to match what you get from the
diesel. With this being the GT model it's very understated, there's not a lot that gives it away
there were only three door bodies available and it had a slightly meaner looking front end but
overall it's very difficult to tell, so if you're after a bit of a sleeper this this car might be
the one. As I mentioned 150 horsepower 0-60mph about eight seconds and 130 miles an hour top speed
Some first impressions and it's often the case with French cars they are usually cheaper to buy they
also tend to look slightly more expensive than they than they are so I would say that this car
it looks more expensive than it is, certainly both from the outside and the inside just
glancing at this interior it looks the part, the problem is that they tend not to be
quite so well screwed together so although they look nice they're not necessarily
that solid. I think this car from from some angles it looks quite good and then from others
it just shows its weight - it just shows it's lardiness just slightly too much. It's still
actually quite a small car by today's standards and that does make it easy to drive around town
and the steering I'll have to try and demonstrate this now - it's a it's a one finger job
I can steer around that corner with one finger because the steering is very light!
it's time to find out how the 207 GT drives on a slightly more twisty and quicker road, and if I put
my foot down, immediately you've got a nice surge of power from the turbo - now it's 150 horsepower
and the car weighs over 1300 kilos so it doesn't feel like the quickest car I've ever driven but
it does have a nice bit of a usable performance from the engine thanks to that twin-scroll turbo
and you might also hear there thedump valve which is one of a couple
of modifications on this car it's got a cold air intake, dump valve and a stainless exhaust which
just gives it a very subtle growl from the rear end, it's not a loud exhaust
both the dump valve and the exhaust add to the experience of this car
and I'll tell you what it handles nicely it's surprisingly good to drive this car
I mean I had read that that it was a good car but I still couldn't quite imagine that
it would be fun, but it grips well it turns in well and then there's enough surge of
power to pull you out of the corners because that steering which is oh so light
it still manages to feel like the car is doing what you ask it to do
without any feeling of weight to it
it's just had new discs and pads and the brakes feel spot on really good
that dump valve is just hilarious it does kind of sound like a mouse sneezing but
it's still entertaining
yeah so it's confidence inspiring - it gets around the corners, you know the brakes will
stop you and yet around town and at lower speeds the ride quality is pretty good
yeah it wants to be driven. This particular car is as I mentioned the GT model but in addition
to that it's the Sport XS which I can only assume means Sport with eXtra Sport - I'm not sure exactly
what that model comes with but this car has got leather seats, air conditioning and all of
the GTs came with 17-inch alloys which are actually pretty nice looking alloy wheels I think
but I definitely like this Sport with eXtra Sport model. Bit crashy, it makes a lot
of noise when it goes over potholes and bumpy bits of road, it doesn't transfer that into you
it's a nice quality ride but it's quite noisy. The THP engine under that bonnet, it's the nicest
looking engine I've seen in a little while - it's just well packaged in there and it looks nice
most people aren't going to care at all about what an engine looks like under that bonnet but
it looks nice under there, well packaged and neat. Now at lower RPM the engine doesn't
sound like much, then it gets a bit boomy but that might just be the exhaust - but then once you get to
sort of four/five thousand RPM it's got a real nice sound to it actually, which I wasn't
expecting because I hadn't heard it at lower speeds. Have a listen to the sneezing mouse
bless you! Oh it's childish but I love it. It wouldn't be a review of a Peugeot
without discussing reliability, and I would say overall from what I've heard from the owner
it's not been catastrophic - it's not been too bad - essentially it boils down to, as often it
does, the electrics. The car's needed a new alternator and it does have a couple of
little quirks now I'll show you with this driver's window... oh my god it's actually
worse now! So I can wind this window back up but I need to do it every time I pull the
switch it just goes up by a tiny tiny fraction and I just need to keep pressing it until... there we go
now it will not go down... Oh no there we go!
okay so there's something not quite right with that driver's window
another one was the brake light burning out and having to be replaced a few times
possibly dodgy earth or something like that. Other than that the car's been okay
mechanically pretty reliable this particular car's done 75 000 miles so it's fairly low mileage
and the owner picked it up for 1500 so a bit of a bargain really and I've had a look on
Auto Trader now there's not many of them for sale but you can get a really nice one for two grand(2000)
this car is kind of perfect for someone who's been driving maybe a couple of years
if you can get insured on one of these when you first learn to drive great go for it, and I
think if you have been driving a couple years then you should be able to get insured on one of these
fairly easily and it makes a great car to just mess about with, modify, have a bit of
fun, twisty roads, it's got the performance, yeah a great car for a second car I would say
oh Peugeot 309, very nice! As I mentioned the steering's quite light, but the clutch
is relatively stiff, compared to the steering it's quite heavy and it it also seems to have a
fairly low biting point so that makes it the clutch at least feels slightly more sporty
but it's a weird combination of heavy clutch and light steering and the gear
shift is all right it's just fine it's not slick, bit notchy but it does the job
it's one hell of a beep! lights are still on... thanks car!
just pulled into a Sainsbury's car park and I thought I'd just have a look
around the cabin and see what's what, see what we've got, as I say it looks fairly
decent in here - there's a lot of shiny chrome silver colored plastic, comes with leather
seats and air con, the seats are pretty comfortable and they hold you in as well they're bolstered
which is nice. What the heck's that... oh card holder, looks like your car could take
payment here for something! Decent door pockets, you could fit a reasonable size bottle in there
cup holders in the middle but no center console storage and then the glove box is typical of some
of these French cars which are designed to be left hand drive - basically it's minuscule there's
some pointless weird little cup holders there that you wouldn't be able to fit anything underneath
and then half of the glove box is taken up by the fuse box. I've noticed that the dashboard,
this little center screen here, displays the whole date - the day, the month and the year - now what I
always like doing when there's a year - I tried it on the Vauxhall Corsa recently - is seeing what year
it will go up to, how long did Peugeot think this car could potentially last for? And interestingly
in this car you can go to the year 2099. I think the Corsa could only go to 2049 so obviously
Peugeot were thinking that this car might last for 100 years which is optimistic, but you never know!
So would I buy one of these cars, and no probably not aged 30+, but if I was 18, yeah I would
have one of these definitely. I wouldn't have cared about the rattling interior and slightly noisy
wind and road noise, I'd have been pretty happy with the performance and the handling. Tell you
what if anyone wants to lend me a 207 GTI for a review I'd love to have a go in one of them, so
get in touch! So that's a quick look at the Peugeot 207 GT an affordable warm hatchback, not
of the highest quality but it handles well, it performs well and it's affordable to buy so
worth looking into if this is your budget - if you've got a budget of 1500 to 2000 and you can
afford the insurance then definitely worth looking at. Big thanks to Nathan for lending me the car
and thank you to everybody for watching, and will see you in the next video
