'Peugeots have lost their beauty'

Peugeots haven't just lost their beauty though. Its worse than that. They've lost their joie de vivre and dynamism for which they were once renowned. The superlative ride and handling balance that defined their cars for generations has been lost. I recently drove a 307 1.4 HDi in France. It had punchy performance, but other than that it was completely unremarkable. I fear that they have chosen to engineer out the superb handling characteristics of their cars to appease the more reserved drivers who didn't much car for engaging drivers cars. This is so far from Peugeots of old which were sold almost entirely on their handling capabilities. Does anyone else remember the tv commercials for the 405 which touted its "unique ICD road handling system" ? (ICD = Integrated Chassis Design) They have also dumbed down their cars handling and increased their weight in pursuit of those NCAP stars which the brand previously struggled to attain. Their cars are not only too nose heavy (for pedestrian & frontal impact crash test reasons), they are also too heavy to be agile and because of their absurd proportions, are ultimately too contrived in their overall styling. Where is the purity of form, simplicity and neat detailing of the 205, 405, 306, 406 etc? What happened to that? Peugeot has completely lost its way in a manner similar to Citroen around the time they launched the dreadfully vanilla Xsara. The handling of modern Peugeots feels far more inert than those of old. Peugeot was once one of my favourite car brands up there with Alfa Romeo, simply because their cars were a scream to drive. My first car was a 405 GRi 1.9 petrol. It was a very accomplished driver's car. There's not a hope you'd get me to buy a 407 now. Its not hideous, but it is all wrong. The nose is overly long, the wheel base consequently looks too short and the tail is stubby. The cab is too far forward without lending any useful interior space unless you use your dashboard as shelving space and parking the thing must be like pinning the tail on the donkey. In short its profile is too much like that awful original Citroen C5. So Peugeot should not just worry about their cars styling and making them pretty again... First and foremost they ought to worry because the handling and excitement is just not there. Secondly, because it was a bad idea for the brand to hinge every car it designed since the 206 on the design cues of a supermini. Thirdly, they need to outsource their styling to Pininfarina once again because plainly on the present evidence - even including their latest concepts and design studies - they haven't a prayer of pulling off a successful design 'inhouse' any time soon. Memo to Peugeot: build an elegant and gorgeous 4 door sedan to replace the 407 or indeed the 607 if you're feeling brave enough, and then leverage the design cues of THAT CAR to inspire the look of the rest of the range. Rather than applying the mpv like proportions of a hatchback to the entire range and hoping that no one will notice. Thats just stupid.