Peugeot RCZ

Among the enormous variety of brands and models of cars seen every day, there are some special examples who deserve bigger attention than others by special reasons. Besides luxury, performance or technology, some particular cars deserve intense compliments not because of what they do but how. It’s very easy to want a car to accomplish goals A, B and C, but only a few are good enough to really get there. RCZ not only did this as also became one of the best current examples of achieving success at what a car’s supposed to do.

Peugeot’s focus has always been the urban cars, of many kinds. They made some luxury sedans, some faster coupes, some vans and even pick-up trucks, but the special dedication goes to hatchbacks, sedans and station wagons. It’s a very wide range, but their difference from the other brands is made at the design, always guided by this feline touch who comes from their lion logo. Considering that, when they came up with the first RCZ, a few years ago, everyone thought they would follow Audi’s path with R8 and dive at the supersports cars’s world for the first time. The thing is, there was another use to this coupe at the French brand’s mind. RCZ doesn’t try to break speed records or spoil its occupants like a limousine, but bring its brand back to its roots. This car shares platform with the 308 line but doesn’t try to deny it – they even have the same central console – because it wishes precisely to be a connection, joining the urban cars with the typical Peugeot’s style boldness. So they gave it a killer style (without saving with shared parts here, thank God) and excellent engines to match it, but still not exclusive for it. Besides that, all this scale production saving helped them to accomplish the last but equally important goal, which will be revealed later.

Although the sales started at 2010, its very first appearance was made as a concept car at 2007, which explains that this face-lift is already planned to 2013. It’s easy to see that they did only what is expected from a half-age update: an improvement of the original concept, instead of desperate attempts to hide the car’s age which easily results at a total lack of harmony. The rear has received nothing more than a new arrangement at the tail lights, but the front deserves applause. Peugeot has avoided the crime it would be to mess this style, so they changed only the necessary to adapt it to their current visual identity. And what an amazing surprise it is to see RCZ abandoning those exaggeratedly-bulged headlights in favor of still feline-inspired but much more elegant units, with reduced size. The air intakes are now clearly divided into two parts, with the upper one reminding of 508 while the lower one now rounds it and ends at two sharp points who carry the LED daylights. A very interesting change is the addition of lots of personalization options. For instance, it’s now possible to change the carbon fiber roof and the front air intake’s coating, to paint the roof’s arches and brake calipers in different colors and even choose between ten wheel options.

This new phase has also received the 508’s entertainment system, with a big touchscreen above the air outlets, but it’s captained by a much bigger new option. The new RCZ will be officially exposed at Paris Motor Show along with the RCZ R version who appears at the last pictures. The photos show the concept car, but the street version was already confirmed, and probably won’t be too different from this one. The new version takes this car’s style to a much higher level of performance: there are improved chassis, re-adjusted brakes and Torsen limited-slip differential, besides the fact that the already famous 1.6 THP will generate 260 hp exclusively for it (how much more power can PSA extract from this engine??). Even though the R version is planned to truly attack its archenemy Audi TT at more versions, RCZ’s main existance reason lies at the conventional versions, which by the way keep both the previous engine and transmission options. The return of this car to the spotlights show Peugeot’s dedication at offering a halfway from emotion and reason. This car doesn’t have huge space or the most powerful engines ever, but goes fast still taking four occupants, and for the same price of many sedans, wagons and even minivans. So how would it be to let yourself escape from those and open the door of a whole different life?