SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
It struck me one day that people who love cabriolets, convertibles, roadsters, drop-tops, sports cars - call them what you will - are probably less concerned with who made them than with how they make their drivers feel. It's rather like motorcycles; there is an indescribable unity with Nature, a one-ness with the road and a bonding with the elements - the sun on your skin, the breeze through your hair and the living sounds of the open road.
That's why I decided to copy and paste all my cabriolet reports into a single folder where drop-top fans can find them all without having to scrabble through endless menus.
I have to warn you that it took a while to warm to the cabriolet phenomenon - convertibles are mostly loved, hankered after and driven by women, so we guys find them hard to appreciate. For that reason, you may find some of the writing a little tongue-in-cheek, sceptical or even downright chauvinist. What can I say? I'm male and I can't help it. Just bear with me though, because I believe that the stories still contain valid information that will hopefully help you make an informed buying decision.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the drop-down menu that appears as you hover your cursor over the folder's title.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports, so even if you're looking to buy second-hand, you have an idea of what it cost originally.
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday August 15, 2009
Once the preserve of dashing young men with bristling military moustaches, immediately post-war MG, Singer and Riley sports cars gave way to modern variants widely generalised today as "not exactly macho."
Women certainly seem to love them. Whether one calls them cabriolets, tourers, roadsters, drop-head coupes or simply convertibles, they draw the gentler gender like badgers to a beehive. Damned if I can work out why.
The Peugeot 308 CC (coupe cabriolet) I drove recently was no exception.
While waiting for my spouse outside the building where she works, I put the car through its 20-second lift, open, fold, tumble and close routine, leaving the car in its best guise, topless.
During the following five minutes, four of her work colleagues leaned out of upstairs windows to ogle the car. Could it be an image thing, based on the unfortunate Lucy Jordan who dreamed of “driving through Paris, in a sports car, with the warm wind in her hair?” Heaven knows, but my beloved’s comment was: “I was born to this.”
Technically, the 308 CC follows on from its 206, 207 and 307 predecessors and is based on the 308 sedan. While engine, gearbox and basic body are the same as on the sedan, its body is significantly strengthened, airbags are arranged differently and passengers sit lower to afford maximum protection in roof down situations, while protection hoops deploy from the tops of the seats in the event of rollover. These features and the foldaway roof add some R83 600 to the sedan’s price.
The seats deserve a paragraph on their own. High-backed, beautifully contoured and finished in soft black leather, they are devilishly comfortable and enfold you in a lover’s embrace, as only the French know how. Makes you want to drive all night, doesn’t it?
Getting back to technicalities, the engine is a 1600 cc, DOHC, 16-valve, turbocharged four-cylinder unit putting out 110 kW at 5 800 rpm and 240 Nm of torque between 1 400 and almost 4 000 rpm. In other words, oodles of grunt from almost any speed in almost any gear. The gearbox is a 6-speed manual unit.
This is by no means a girl racer though, performing the zero to 100-km/h thing in about ten seconds, but sports cars are more about enjoyment than they are about testosterone-laden all-out dash. The 308 CC gets you there as quickly as you need, with the backup of all the technological safety tools you could possibly want and in style and comfort as well.
Inside, dual zone climate control recognises whether the roof is up or down and configures temperature, air flow and air distribution to suit. Automatically activated headlights and windscreen wipers are standard, as are electrically operated and heated exterior mirrors that fold away when the car is locked. Also automatically locked, with the doors when the roof is down, are the glove box and the lid on the centre console storage unit.
The FM Stereo CD receiver features multiple speakers and MP3 playback capability, while the steering wheel has fingertip satellite controls.
Also on the standard features list are cruise control with a speed limit function, an electrochromatic (self-dipping) rear-view mirror, seat heaters, a trip computer and a refrigerated glove compartment to keep your choccies cool.
The only point on which I differ seriously with the car’s spin-doctors is the subject of the rear seats. The blurb describes it as a full four-seater. I tried. Not only is there insufficient legroom for grown people back there, but there isn’t enough headroom either.
This is the third cabriolet I have driven in the course of this job, it’s at least my second favourite and I could get used to it. I don’t know what that says about me, but surely it’s true that all generalisations are incorrect?
The numbers
Price: R336 500
Engine: 1 598 cc DOHC, 16 valve 4 cylinder in line
Power: 110 kW at 5 800 rpm
Torque: 240 Nm at 1 400 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 10,1 seconds
Maximum speed: 215 km/h (claimed)
Average fuel economy over 320 km of mixed driving: 8,6 l/100 km
Fuel tank capacity: 60 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Maintenance plan: 3 years/100 000 km
This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.
What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.
I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8