Peugeot 508 PSE

Anyone who’s ever spent any time in what novelist Wilbur Smith was wont to call ‘the vast heat that is Africa’ will undoubtedly tell you that there’s something unique about the Dark Continent’s ability to imbue you with the most improbably vivid, life-long memories.

Indeed, my recollections of a precious clutch of childhood years spent in East Africa remain indelibly etched…

Enormous skies; snakes in the kitchen; scorpions in the shoes; thorns the size of darning needles; giant insects clattering clumsily aloft like Chinook helicopters; the faint but unsettling rustle of a million army ants on the move; artillery barrage-intense thunderstorms; a pet bush baby that pinged off the picture rails and peed on your head; jacaranda trees in bloom; a Siamese cat which delighted in tormenting chameleons by bringing them inside and dropping them on a tartan travel rug… And that was just the back garden.

Even more vivid are memories of an annual pilgrimage from Nairobi down to the coast at Mombasa. For any small boy worth his salt, option A was always the overnight train; in those days lugged by a snorting leviathan of a steam locomotive which, for all its monstrous intent, seemed to manage a brisk jog at best along a line of understandably haphazard quality. After all, it had cost the life of one man per day during its construction –all eaten by lions. 

Infinitely less glamorous, the alternative was the murram dirt mayhem of the main road. Perhaps a fear of succumbing to big cat canapé status took the eyes of those building it off the ball, because the un-metalled road surface was horrendous. Billowing red dust rapidly plugged every orifice and simply could not ever be fully washed from clothing, whilst a regular spacing of wheel barrow-deep potholes dictated that optimum velocity was about 50mph; fast enough to fly clean over the deepest divots yet, hopefully, slow enough not to lose an entire wheel on impact.

And never mind the lions; death by elephant was not uncommon. Entirely daubed in murram dust and bereft of running lights, the resident pachyderm population proved almost impossible to pick out in the dim glow of ancient headlights… Barrel headlong into a bull elephant and no one walks away.

All of which lobbed some interesting and entirely unique variables into the equation when it came to buying a car. Ultimately, it came down to a choice of two; the Citroen Safari or the Peugeot 504. The Citroen, an estate version of the lovely DS, had the ability, via a handbrake-style lever, to hitch up its petticoats and glide over the roughest terrain.

But it was the 504 that quietly conquered the whole of Africa. Biltong-tough, its unbeatable combination of hilariously long-travel suspension and lounge-lizard seat springing elicited levels of ride comfort entirely at odds with the relentless violence going on below decks, and scarcely a ripple of road surface interference ever made it through to the rump. Indeed, so able was the big Peugeot in this environment that it regularly wrested the East African Safari Rally laurels from all comers.

Today, though, the worm has turned so absolutely that -with almost every manufacturer irritatingly obsessed with dynamic abilities which 95% of owners will never come close to fully exploiting other than at the scene of an accident- most family cars are no longer nearly comfortable enough in the cruise.

What, then, of this 508 PSE? Well, PSE stands for Peugeot Sport Engineered, and what that equates to here is shoehorning the most powerful road-going drivetrain the company has ever made into the almost politely good-looking hull of a standard 508 before lowering the ride height, widening the front and rear tracks, making the suspension 50% stiffer, and adding three-stage adjustable damping and massive brakes tucked into 20-inch alloys.

Diminutive winglets sprouting hither and thither, PSE badging -acid green slashes all too reminiscent of a certain energy drink logo, and a pair of illuminated sabre teeth complete the gently pleasing picture.

On board, given that this is also the most expensive car Peugeot has ever made, things are not so great. There’s not a deal of room front or back, which doesn’t really matter when you’re comfortably snugged behind the wheel of a car with such sporting pretensions, were it not for Peugeot’s i-Cockpit, which just irritates me.

As discussed in the past: the whole novelty of looking at the instruments over, rather than through, the wheel is only here made possible by two measures: Firstly Peugeot has chopped the top off the steering wheel as well as the bottom. It’s not, as often described, a small wheel, it’s just an oval wheel with decent width retained. Secondly, You have to drive with said helm in your lap if you want to see the instrument binnacle properly, which you won’t once you’ve lowered the seat height to a position appropriate to the performance on offer…

Lob in PSA stock screen graphics that fall a tad short of the price tag and a row of piano key-style switches set under the centre screen exactly where you want to rest your fingers whilst using it and the appeal of the cockpit wanes further.

Anyway, best turn our attention to what the delivery of 350 bhp and -courtesy of a 113 bhp rear electric motor- all-wheel drive feels like in a car the weight of which the powertrain has pushed up to around 1850 kg…

Well, like anything involving electric motor power, the 508 PSE is amusingly, and effortlessly, quick off the line, with 62 mph coming up in a quoted 5.2 seconds. Gentle throttle application gets you rolling in mostly rear-wheel drive format with the promise of up to 26 miles of all-electric driving. A more lead-footed approach equates to a front-biased power split, with the front/rear ratio varying according to how hard you press, and which of the car’s driving modes you opt for.

Aside from Electric, the start-up default, there are four: Comfort, Hybrid, Sport and 4WD. That may sound like plenty to choose from, but matters are not actually so clear cut. Hybrid and 4WD we can take for granted – that’s essentially what the car is. But the set up for both Comfort and Sport modes frustrates; the former because you only have access to 325 bhp rather than the full George, the latter because you cannot pair it with the softest suspension setting.

Lob in an automatic transmission that will not allow you to lock it in Manual mode – take over with the paddles and the gearbox will quickly wrest back control- and you find yourself helming a machine that will all too often not give you what you want or, indeed, behave as you want.

All of which is a shame because, an unpleasantly over-tough ride on rubbish road surfaces aside- the PSE makes a commendable fist of disguising the unwanted bulk that batteries inevitably bring.

However, despite precise steering, surprisingly sharp turn-in and remarkably high levels of grip, the struggle to gain consistent manual control of the gearbox combined with brakes which, though powerful, lack feel and finesse, conspire to offer greater driving pleasure through faster, sweeping corners than amidst the tight stuff, wherein you quickly discover that the ESP system cannot be deactivated.

Ultimately, then, I came away from the PSE feeling as if it was almost trying to do too much; to be all things to all drivers, including the electrovangelists, at all times. Best driven as an automatic and left to its own devices, it’s pleasingly engaging, effortlessly fast across country and, though no 504 full magic carpet, delivers an acceptably pliant ride. If you select your road surface with care.

Given the price tag, it’s little wonder that Peugeot describes the 508 PSE as a ‘halo’ car. It’s sufficiently different -often wantonly, occasionally irritatingly so- from any rivals as to almost guarantee a degree of rarity on the roads, and that alone is, perhaps, reason enough to give it a second look.