Yesterday we brought you news of the Peugeot 208 Racing, a stripped-out version of the road car intended mostly for rallying. We lamented the thought that such a car could exist conceptually, but not be replicated in a showroom model, ideally with a Rallye badge attached to it. This led to an inevitable discussion about previous small Peugeots that burned themselves into the national consciousness with their brilliance. There are several to choose from, depending how old you are. But the 205, thanks to its Genesis-like reputation, arguably stands above them all.
Clearly there are more famous (and much better) editions than the relatively humble five-door GT. Nevertheless, if you’re of a certain age, this is one of those cars (alongside the Nova SR and various iterations of Fiesta) that were considered halfway affordable - and therefore extremely desirable - to a generation of trolley-gatherers in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. There was, of course, a good reason for this: the 205’s fame for flyweight dynamic excellence might have been best represented by the GTI and Rallye, but the effect filtered down to nearly all of Peugeot’s cooking models. Even the diesels.
There were several good reasons for this. But mostly it was to do with a) the innate quality of the underlying chassis and b) the of-its-time absence of anything resembling extraneous weight. Thus the 205, even when combined with very modest power, handled like a moveable feast of feedback and loose-limbed balance. The engine options, reflecting a French penchant for building four-cylinder petrol units in a bewildering array of sizes and outputs, were plentiful. The older variants of the GT got the venerable X unit that had been around since the early ‘70s, although by the late ‘80s these were being replaced by the shiny new PSA TU engine.
Precisely which generation of spirited 1.4-litre motor this example of the GT is actually sporting we’ll leave for older, wiser heads to determine in the comments - regardless, it was shared with the equivalent three-door XS and (in either format) equipped the GT with around 80hp. To our younger audience, that might sound like a veritable drop in the contemporary output bucket - and, in fairness, it probably put the five-door the wrong side of a 10-second-to-62mph sprint - but with just 800 or so kilos to carry (and Peugeot’s NVH solutions about as sophisticated as an air raid warden’s hat) it seemed plenty quick enough.
Especially as the GT occupied the exalted position of ‘warm’ in the trim running order. Granted, the appearance of those letters don’t exactly scream implied status - this was before manufacturers discovered that big sills and silly arches were worth their weight in add-on gold - but, as everyone knows, all you needed in the ‘90s were the right combination of letters, and you were instantly 17 rungs higher on the social scale. And while it assuredly existed in the long shadow of its betters, the GT achieved its own kind of connoisseur status among narrow-eyed bargain hunters.
Consequently, there will be the usual forehead-slapping shock at the scale of the asking price. But really we should be impervious it by now - no car from the good old days that qualifies for even a very mild rose tint is ever going to be cheap again, especially when they are presented in such fabulous condition. This one has covered just 54k in 35 years and has apparently be treated to a complete restoration underneath. It also looks like it’s barely been sat in. What a lovely way to revisit a time when small cars seemed fun almost by default. Even if the ticket back there will cost you 10 grand.
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