"So, what happens if you lift off of the throttle now?" our companion asks as we charge a cloverleaf bend leading onto a Spanish motorway. But if this Spanish highway worker is looking for drama, he's in for disappointment, as the 2011 Peugeot RCZ sheds enough speed to regain its balance and get us around the bend. We're saved by the magic of stability control and sticky tires. This won't be the last excitement we enjoy onboard this Audi TT-style coupe today, but the next highs will come for reasons other than on-ramp bravado.
We breathe the throttle pedal, and the nose of the front-wheel-drive 2011 Peugeot RCZ GT 1.6 THP200 gently scribes a slightly tighter turn. But this doesn't seem much of a test, so we speed up and drop the throttle again, only to discover our bend tightening a whole lot more than expected in its bid to join the motorway. Never mind lifting off because now we're braking, too, the Peugeot's tires scrabbling audibly on this dust-slicked on-ramp while a nearby road worker looks up from his digging to see what's going on.
Peugeot Has Won Le Mans, You Know
What we're driving is the 2011 Peugeot RCZ, a shapelyconcept car from the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show that has finally reached production. It promises to make Peugeot an exciting brand again. Remember, this is the car company that made the Peugeot 205 GTi into the car of the decade in Europe during the 1980s, and then made it into a world-beating rally car, the 205 T16 Group B. Of course, we remember only the Peugeot 405 Mi16, the last car the company sold in the U.S. before it went home to France in disgrace in 1991.
What we're driving is the 2011 Peugeot RCZ, a shapelyconcept car from the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show that has finally reached production. It promises to make Peugeot an exciting brand again. Remember, this is the car company that made the Peugeot 205 GTi into the car of the decade in Europe during the 1980s, and then made it into a world-beating rally car, the 205 T16 Group B. Of course, we remember only the Peugeot 405 Mi16, the last car the company sold in the U.S. before it went home to France in disgrace in 1991.
