Get yours in ‘Obsession Blue’. Photo: James Coleman.
If you’re buying a Peugeot, it’s probably because you’ve always bought Peugeots.
Your grandfather rode a Peugeot bicycle, or used a Peugeot pepper grinder, and his mum wore a Peugeot corset (no joke – today’s French car brand has chosen some interesting diversifications in its 215-year history).
But should it be this way?
Life’s too short for boring cars – to which I’ll admit most will retort that it’s also too short to whittle away fixing an exotic one.
But I’ve just spent a week in Peugeot’s new seven-seater SUV, the 5008, and when it costs around the same as a Mazda CX-60 or Hyundai Santa Fe – and has a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty – there’s a compelling case for a little more je ne sais quoi in your life.
There are two models, the Allure from $55,990, and this, the GT Premium, from $67,990. And yes, there are some typically French weirdities.
Like the styling, but then my mind rifled back through the years of Peugeots – and most things from France really – and concluded it’s actually quite handsome, with facial scars like it got into a scrap with a tiger and came away victor.
Inside, there are numerous patterns and textures at play, but by far the most unusual arrangement is how Peugeot continues to mount the steering wheel under the dashboard.
This means you look over the top of it to see the screen which, in turn, means they’ve had to mount the screen high on the dash, and because this has made it harder to reach, they add a third little touchscreen underneath the central air-conditioning vents for various buttons (Peugeot calls them ‘i-Toggles’).
That said, once you get used to it – and provided your thighs aren’t too thick – it feels remarkably natural to have the steering wheel right there in your lap. Even gamer-like. Even having the gear selector mounted on the dash doesn’t feel all that clumsy either.
While the 5008 does have seven very comfortable seats, you wouldn’t want to use all of them in any serious way all the time. The cabin is spacious and quiet – with the appearance helped by the sprawling glass roof overhead – but put the two rearmost seats up and you’d barely have room for Marie Antoinette’s cake in the boot.
The air conditioning is also not very effective at actually keeping you cool – a baffling consideration, considering summer temperatures in the south of France surely aren’t dissimilar to those here. I resorted to using the windows, as if it were 1960 again.
Most infuriating, however, was the delay on the start button. It’d often press it, but apparently not hard enough, or long enough, or with my tongue in the right position, and nothing would happen.
A mini wheel – that’s also not really round. Photo: James Coleman.
Not that much was ever going to happen. Under the 5008’s bonnet – if you look very carefully and with enough light – you’ll spot a 1.2-litre turbocharged 3-cylinder petrol engine and an electric motor, mated together to create what Peugeot calls a “mild hybrid”.
Unlike everything that has been called a mild hybrid up to this point, however, the 5008 can move at slow speeds under electric power alone. So, like a regular hybrid. Put your foot down a bit more, and the petrol engine chimes in with a bit of clunk – it’s not quite as smooth as a Toyota hybrid – and there’s a flare of noisy revs.
It has a ‘Sports’ mode, but that only made what is a rather lovely steering set-up heavier in a fake, artificial way – like some elastic bands had been added. Maybe it’s due to the smaller steering wheel size, but you don’t have to turn it as much, which imbues the 5008 with quite a tight handling feel.
No matter what you do, however, it’s not quick – 0-100 km/h takes a glacial 11.3 seconds. Arguably, that’s fine for a seven-seater family SUV. Speed is just a way of making more vomit.
I really only panicked about it once, when I put my foot down to overtake at 90 km/h on the highway and the car felt like it would have rather been sitting at a streetside café, enjoying a pastry and flirting with passing madames.
Peugeot has had a lacklustre year so far in Australia, despite the arrival of new hybrids like this and the smaller 2008 SUV, as well as the very fetching plug-in hybrid 408. All up, only 58 were sold between January and June.
But why not give it a go? You might be pleasantly surprised. I was. Either that, or wait for the company to start selling hair straighteners.
Prices range from $55,990 for the Allure model and the $67,990 for this GT Premium. Photo: James Coleman.
2025 Peugeot 5008 Hybrid GT Premium
- $67,990 (plus on-road costs)
- 1.2-litre 3-cylinder turbo-petrol, with 48V mild-hybrid system
- 100 kW / 230 Nm (plus electric motor outputs 15.6 kW / 51 Nm
- 6-speed dual-clutch automatic, front-wheel drive (FWD)
- 5.1 litres per 100 km claimed fuel consumption, 95 RON
- 0-100 km/h in 11.3 seconds
- 1671 kg.
Thanks to Peugeot Australia for providing this car for testing. Region has no commercial arrangement with Peugeot Australia.
