Sharper feel for Peugeot 208 and a mileage champ

Not perhaps as fuel frugal as one particular example of the latest range; which sipped tiny amounts of diesel over more than 1,300 miles at a test track and posted an almost unreal 141mpg in the process.

You can now buy that model from £17,045 and it comes with a 110 horsepower diesel and won't manage anything like that in the real world, of course. But even half that extraordinary figure would make it a mileage champ, and ought to be do-able in everyday motoring.

The price will keep it a small seller, though, in a range of newish looking 208s that start at £11,695 for a car with a modestly powerful petrol engine and top out (for the moment) with the £21,995 and weightily worded 'GTi by Peugeot Sport'.

This latter car is a 143mph addition to the range and is packed with go faster bits, from tuned suspension and super sticky tyres to bigger front brakes (more a go slower addition, of course) and the £615 option of a finish in matt silver, and able to withstand frequent washing, unlike the plastic wrapping available elsewhere to achieve a similar shine-free look.

Every new 208 has a sharper feel at the front, courtesy of freshly styled bumper and grille, while there are changes to the rear lights too; the whole ensemble aimed at pushing the car a bit more upmarket in a buyer's eye.

Inside, the mildly controversial steering wheel (tiny enough to see the instruments over the top) and a touch screen that almost totally banishes buttons are retained. New options are a reversing camera (£200) and active city brake (£250) which uses a laser beam to monitor traffic and stop the car at low speed if it senses an impending collision.

A revised set of petrol and diesel engines all meet forthcoming stricter emissions targets.

One diesel version, with 1.6 litres and 75 horsepower, returns 94.2mpg average in the official tests; a claimed record for the class, if scarcely realistic in the cut and thrust of everyday motoring.

But three-quarters of all the 100,000-plus 208s sold in the UK since sales began three years ago have had petrol power, and there is a new more powerful – 110 horsepower – version of the 1.2 litre three-cylinder petrol engine on offer, from £15,495 which figures at 118mph flat out and 62.8mpg average, although not at the same time ...

The 208 is Peugeot's biggest seller, with more than a million built at plants in France and Slovakia and sold more to women than men (55/45) and vastly more popular in five-door form than as a three-door hatch. Most popular colour is shark grey, since you ask.

Driving the newest petrol engine on the delightfully smooth roads of deepest Austria, it proved a willing partner to forward progress, never feeling underpowered for a moment and sounding, like all three-cylinders, happy to rev its little head off day.

That wasn't necessary, thanks to the boost from its turbocharger, and the result was 46mpg at the end of a drive that took in enough demanding hills to encourage a lot of use of the easy-feeling gear change.

Ride was hard to judge on the billiard tables that pass for roads in this prosperous part of middle Europe, but the rare patched piece of tarmac did not trouble the little and lithe 208.

A new six-speed automatic transmission version of the same car (£16,495) showed an encouraging 42mpg over the same sort of terrain and changed gears with a smoothness and enthusiasm notably lacking in automatics of old.

By Ian Donaldson