Car with a fragrance

Peugeot's fresh, new 207 hatchback is not to be sniffed at

Giles Smith
Wednesday August 30, 2006
The Guardian





Model Peugeot 207 GT Hdi
Price From £14,745
Top speed 120mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 10.1 secs
Consumption 58.8mpg (combined)
Emissions 166g/km (road tax band x)
At the wheel Sharon Osbourne
They'd rather walk Ozzy Osbourne
On the stereo The Feeling
En route for Farnham

Never take for granted the smell of a brand- new car. "New car" smell offers one of the greatest olfactory pleasures known to man - right up there with freshly cut grass, baking bread and just-bought magazine print.

The failure of "new car" smell to last anything more than two weeks into ownership, however, is an undeniable weakness in the odour's make-up. That magnificent bouquet of recently stitched leather and recently hammered plastic is soon lost to the atmosphere. After this point, depending on the vigour of the owner's commitment to valeting, a car's interior will come to smell increasingly, shall we say, "homely". Within a year, the averagely neglected family runabout tends to hum of stale coffee with a low but persistent hint of training shoe.

People who care about this kind of thing tend, having little alternative, to go down the air freshener route - the jewelled card or a-seasonal Christmas tree shape, hung from the rear-view mirror or (less obtrusively) the headlight stalk. These devices themselves combine the astringent, eye-watering tang of bleach-intensive, industrial lavatory cleaner with the fruity top note of some of the cheaper kinds of bubble-gum - meaning that they work perfectly, except inasmuch as they smell far worse than the smells they are intended to mask.

All credit to Peugeot, then, for achieving, with the launch of the new Peugeot 207 hatchback, nothing less than a major 21st-century breakthrough in car-odour management. For, fitted as standard in the SE model of this charismatic runabout - and as an option on the Sport and GT versions - is nothing less than a dash-mounted, dual-function "fragrance diffuser".

This patented process features a replaceable cartridge containing scent which, at the click of a switch, can be made to waft through the central air vents in tandem with the air-conditioning system, thus creating the sensation, as and when required, of floating through a perfumed garden, rather than - as may be the case - driving around with bottle of Coke Zero and a bag of pickled onion-flavoured Monster Munch.

Clearly, such versatile dedication to in-car nasal action is not to be sniffed at. Moreover, Peugeot has made available, through its dealership chain, a wide range of (in Peugeot's presumably well-researched opinion) suitable fragrances for dispersal through a 207, including Lime Fresh, Tropical Mango, Tender Jasmine and Dog's Chew Toy. I really am not making any of this up. OK, I made up Dog's Chew Toy. But the rest is true.

The New York Times, we read, has just appointed a perfume correspondent - believed to be a newspaper first. I could have used his input. Indeed, if Peugeot's innovation takes a hold across the market, there will be ample work in journalism for someone capable of operating efficiently at the motoring/perfume interface.

All I can report is that I was getting furniture polish cut with strawberry yoghurt and, if I breathed deeply enough, just a trace, in the perfume's exotic hinterland, of Listerine. Better than stale coffee and trainer.

The 207 is a fresh little number in many respects. It is a bigger, slightly punchier version of the popular 206, and will be sold alongside it. It's for people who want a 206 with a bit more perk about the wing mirrors and some crunchier bumpers, as well as being, obviously, for people who like the whiff of mango.

I had the turbo-charged 1.6-litre diesel version, which, being light, and almost fluffy to handle, and easy to accelerate through small gaps, was pretty big on temptations to foolhardiness, but also big on engine noise in the cabin. It is, however, bright and sensibly built and, for a hatchback, its seats are uncommonly interested in your comfort. And is it not fragrant? Fill your nasal passages. It's the great smell of Peugeot ·