Price: £21,795
Top speed: 117mph
0-62mph: 11.2 seconds
MPG: up to 70.6
CO2: 104g/km
Peugeot’s all-new 3008 SUV offers absolutely no challenge to the country’s lairiest car salesmen. They’ve spent years honing their skills, turning us inside out with their smart patter and sly jargon. Then along comes this refined, resourceful and alluring car… and takes the words right out of their mouths. I can’t remember climbing into a more instantly likable car. A test drive isn’t so much a first date as a waltz up the aisle.
There are dozens of mid-size SUVs out there, from the Kuga to the Kadjar (Ford and Renault clearly use the same name generator for their models), and to be competitive in this shark’s pool of motoring segments, new cars have to bring their A-game if they are to survive let alone thrive.
The outgoing 3008 was a fairly mundane beast. You’d struggle to pick it out in the airport car park if you’d been abroad for more than a week – even if you remembered where you’d parked it., but the new 3008 is cut from different cloth. It’s both chunkier and sportier than before, ticking both the MPV and the SUV boxes. Clever design sprinkles fairy dust on every feature: from the stainless steel doorsills to the chrome-trimmed floating roof, smoked windows and jagged front lights. The 3008 is daintier than the 5008, but it’s so roomy you could easily imagine you’d accidentally opted for the bigger model.
The exterior impresses, but it’s the interior that knocks it out the park. It’s interesting and original – everything has been reconsidered. The instrument cluster resides in an angular display pod beneath the sweeping windscreen. The steering wheel is squared off, top and bottom. At the centre of the dash is the main touchscreen display and below that a rack of small levers which offer shortcuts to all the functionality above. There are about three ways to access everything – all part of Peugeot’s new i-Cockpit. Of the dozens of driver aids, comfort applications and safety features available, one that caught my eye was the driver “ambience system”. This adjusts interior mood lighting and the smell of the cabin (go for Cosmic Cuir, Aerodrive or Harmony Wood). There’s even an eight-way multi-point massage function on your seat. It’ll work over your shoulders or lumbar region. The “cat paw” setting was a little peculiar. The list of extras is very generous and you can opt for keyless entry/go, adaptive cruise control and an electric tailgate.
One thing Peugeot doesn’t shout enough about is its engines. As a range they are exceptional: the “PureTech” powerplant has just won International Engine of the Year for the second time running. The turbocharged 1.2-litre 3-cylinder petrol which I tested was the cheapest and smallest option. But to drive it felt light and zestful, sending us skipping across the tarmac like a pebble across the water. The only question is: where do I sign?
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever left behind in a car?
Webuyanycar.com has now passed its 1m milestone. Buying over a million cars from British drivers means they have recovered quite a few items abandoned by previous owners. From the funny to the downright shocking, the list of forgotten things includes a lot more that the usual spare change or embarrassing CDs in the glove box.
One webuyanycar.com employee spotted a box, ‘riding shotgun’ in the passenger seat of the latest purchase. What he thought was a pool cue was in fact a shotgun and a box of shells. Luckily, his sniper-like speed and precision meant the shotgun case was targeted and handed back to its rightful owner before the gentleman had left the branch – to get to a pheasant hunt.
Next up, what can only be described as rotten behaviour - one customer dumped a load of old nappies in the boot of a car that had just been sold. In what seemed to be a genuine mistake, an expert from the car buying service also found a positive pregnancy test while clearing out the passenger side of the latest purchase… Well, accidents do happen.
On the subject of family, many consider dogs to be an integral part of the family unit – not so for the owner of a Nissan Navara, who made the terrible mistake of forgetting their four-legged friend in the boot. In their defence, though, the hound was claimed back within the hour.
At first mistaken for a living breathing lady, what was revealed to be a shop window mannequin dressed in ‘risqué lingerie’ was not that lucky and was never claimed.
Richard Evans, Head of Technical Services at webuyanycar.com, commented: “We always try hard to return lost property it to its rightful owner. One of my personal favourites has to be a One Direction CD that was found in a glove box. After a lot of searching, we contacted the owner who turned up to collect the album. I don’t think any of us were expecting a 6ft, balding petrolhead to walk in to claim the boyband’s latest hits.”
Take the this quiz to see if you can tell the difference between the true and false items left behind in cars webuyanycar.com/car-magazine/lost-and-found/
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166
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