Peugeot 107 - The Definitive City Car? : SENSE IN THE CITY

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Peugeot's 107 is a city car with clarity of purpose. Steve Walker reports.

Open the boot of a Peugeot 107 and you'll be confronted with a tiny but significant detail that provides as clear an insight as any into the thinking behind this car. There's only one piece of string to hold up the parcel shelf. Bear with me here; this isn't the beginning of some arcane and pointless journey into the crazy world of vehicle parcel shelving and support. Think of that lonely piece of string stretched from the right side of the load cover to its little hook on the inside of the rear windscreen frame, without a partner on the left, as a metaphor for the 107. This is a small runabout designed to do the basics with most of the extraneous detail stripped away. It sets out to be the definitive modern city car.

That bit of parcel shelf string seems hugely insignificant but it shows the thinking behind the 107. Almost all other hatchbacked cars have two bits of string to hold up their parcel shelves when you open the boot. It would have cost Peugeot a trivial amount to fit two as well but the boot works just as well with one, so it didn't. That solo string is symbolic of the all the other unseen work that has gone on around the 107 to shave weight, cut costs and improve efficiency. It sounds like we're talking about a horribly utilitarian little vehicle whose designers have sacrificed any notion of fun and style at the altar of practicality but Peugeot's offering is much better balanced than that. Just how well balanced is something we've been trying to find out on our long term test. Our 107 test car arrived in mid-range Urban trim and the more practical five-door bodystyle. The styling is distinctive, with Peugeot's trademark cavernous front air-intake dominating the front end and a neat rear with its curvy light clusters. You certainly wouldn't have the 107 down as a bargain basement city scoot. On looks, it stands comparison with the sector's best efforts, even if Peugeot's frontal treatment might be an acquired taste. That nose is a bigger issue for the 107 than you might imagine because the car is the result of a three-way collaboration between Peugeot, Citroen and Toyota which also resulted in the Citroen C1 and the Toyota Aygo. The three cars are all but identical apart from their frontal styling and anyone liking the 107 but unsure about its looks might be inclined to look elsewhere.

"The 107 is a car unashamed of its back to basics approach"

The looks may divide opinion but inside, the 107 is far more populist in its appeal. You instantly glimpse the exposed metal on the doors and the dash. It's a sign of costs being cut but it looks good in the same colour as the exterior paintwork and it's certain to prove more durable than the cheap plastic cladding employed by some rivals. The rest of the cabin feels robustly put together. There aren't concessions to soft-touch plastics for fancy trim finishes but it all looks good and space feels both light and airy. There's a huge amount of storage room for such a compact car, with every spare nook given over to a cubby or shelf. There should be no excuse for slinging items into the passenger footwell or letting them slide around on the back seat. Speaking of the rear seating, it's surprisingly spacious back there. The five door bodystyle does trump the three-door for practicality but the door openings are quite narrow and you do have to squeeze in to an extent. Once inside, there's enough head and legroom for a couple of rear passengers of around six feet tall but you wouldn't want to travel too far seated back there. For kids, the space is perfect and complaints should be minimal. The rear seat backs split 50/50 on our Urban model to usefully increase the boot capacity when you're travelling with just one passenger. Without the seats folded, the available space is tight and the boot aperture itself is quite narrow, which doesn't help when trying to get bulkier items inside. Take to the road and the benefit of the weight-saving work that the designers did on this car is immediately evident. It actually tips the scales at just 875kg, which is reflected in the light, nimble feel you get at the wheel. The car is designed for city driving and it fills that role perfectly, changing direction sweetly and cornering without much body lean at all. The ride is on the firm side and our model quickly developed an annoying squeak from under the driver's seat which no amount of WD40 seems able to fix but otherwise, it's a comfortable place to be on longer journeys. Because of the 107's light weight, it can get away with a modest 1.0-litre 3-cylinder petrol engine. In fact, it does more than get away with it. The 68bhp unit sounds quite uninspiring on paper but it does a fine job of launching the car around town and even comes complete with a mildly naughty engine note. This can be a genuinely fun car to drive and the flipside is a combined fuel economy figure of over 61mpg. With emissions of 106g/km, this spells refreshingly tiny running costs. The 107 is a car unashamed of its back to basics approach to urban motoring and we've found very little evidence that it has anything to be ashamed of. The focus is on light weight and low costs but the clever, modern design means that the hard plastics and slight lack of fineness inside don't really matter. There's an impressive amount of space and on the road, the 107 serves up a driving experience that's ideal for life in the city. There's a lot to like about a car so honest and fit for purpose. It's also completely lacking in gimmicks. Unless you count that single string parcel shelf that is.

Facts At A Glance
CAR: Peugeot 107 Urban 5dr
PRICE: £8,545 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 1E
CO2 EMISSIONS: 106g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 14.2s / Max Speed 100mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (urban) 51.3mpg / (extra urban) 68.8mpg / (combined) 61.3mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front and side airbags, ABS, EBD
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height 3405/1615/1415mm