Pre-Paris hybrid hype from Peugeot

Peugeot is aiming to wow its home crowd at the Paris motor show in October with its RC hybrid concept.

The French firm is being rather tight-lipped about its show star, even holding back the hybrid concept's name until nearer its Paris debut.

All that Peugeot is admitting to is that the sleek concept is a four-door and that it offers a potential power output of 313bhp.

How it will achieve that output is anyone's guess, particularly as Peugeot is also claiming a CO₂ figure of just 109g/km.

That's an ambitious target with such a high power output, and to achieve it Peugeot will have to have some clever new technology under the RC's svelte bodywork.

Claiming to use a 'highly innovative hybrid architecture' the RC is likely to be more of a showcase for far-future thinking than production ready technology.

What is interesting though is the RC's styling, it thought to be a very strong hint as to how the 407's replacement might look.

The low roofline and sculpted flanks would certainly work on the 407's successor, the market moving to more coupe-like designs like Volkswagen's Passat CC.

More details of what Peugeot describes as a 'working laboratory' will be available in Paris, where, if it looks even half as good in reality as it does in the pictures it should be a real crowd pleaser.

Kyle Fortune