2018 Peugeot 508 starts from £25,000

The 508, formerly a staid-looking four-door saloon, is now a now a much more stylish bustle-backed five-door with frameless doors and “sharp and sculpted” lines. It is around 6cm lower than most rivals in its class, and looks low and sleek even though it is about 8cm shorter overall.

A rear light bar with LED lights is taken straight from the Instinct concept, and front-end styling draws from the car’s more aggressive look than the outgoing 508.

Other tech highlights include a raft of driver assistance systems, as well as an infra-red camera integrated into the car’s pedestrian detection system to aid in detecting pedestrians at night. Inside, the 508 gets Peugeot’s second-generation i-Cockpit system, with a 10in central touchscreen and 12.3in TFT display replacing conventional dials behind  the steering wheel.

Where the previous 508 sales were almost exclusively diesel, Peugeot expects a higher petrol bias for the new car around a 68/32 split in favour of diesel is expected by the brand.

The range is topped by a 222bhp Puretech petrol-engined variant, although six petrol and diesel engines are available from launch, with the entry-level car getting a 1.5-litre 128bhp BlueHDi unit - the only 508 available with a manual gearbox. 2.0-litre 158bhp and 178bhp BlueHDi diesels also feature, as does a 2.0-litre 178bhp Puretech petrol.

The 508’s renewal is something of a surprise move by Peugeot - the saloon market continues to dwindle due to the market moving to SUVs, while sales of the 508 have never topped the 140,0000 sold in France in 2010. Sales have fallen steadily since then, with 82,000 sold in the car’s home market last year.

With a renewed focus on design and a fresh body style, the 508 marks the beginning of a reaffirmation of PSA’s support of larger saloons, with sister brand Citroën working on a ‘luxurious’ saloon for launch in 2019 or 2020.

The car’s platform remains the same - the PSA EMP2 platform which underpins many of the company’s models, including the Peugeot 3008 and Peugeot 5008 SUVs, Vauxhall Grandland X, DS 7 Crossback and Citroën Picasso MPVs.

The fastback rear is also a departure from its conventional saloon predecessor, and increases boot capacity from 473 litres to 485.

Peugeot's European boss Maxim Picat cites CO2 as his biggest problem. He believes model range, costs, and production issues are broadly in sync with company aspirations, but the 2020 fleet requirement for 95g/km is the tough one. Tougher for others than PSA though, he says. Believes they have the solutions, based on 'the four' - petrol, diesel, EV and PHEV, plus the flexibility to switch.

Diesel demand dropped 5% across Europe between 2016 and 2017, and there's more to come. But 3-cylinder 1.2-litre variants are PSA's defence against the worst of it. A 3-cylinder 508 will appear in late 2018 and 'works brilliantly'.

The 508 plug-in presents Peugeot with a vital offering to the Chinese market, where increasingly stringent emissions limits mean cars with pure electric capabilities are proving extremely popular. Mattei admitted that there would be some minor changes to the 508’s design in order to cater to the unique tastes of Chinese buyers, but that largely, the car would remain unchanged.

“We didn’t design the 508 in Europe and then modify it for China,” he said. “We designed it in Europe with advice from [our colleagues in] China from the very start. In fact, the car’s iCockpit dashboard was shown in China before Europe.”