The Peugeot 108 city car is a cute, well kitted and comfortable small car with added practicality of a five door model option.
The Peugeot 108 city car comes with a choice of two petrol engines. The first engine is a 1.0 litre three cylinder with 68bhp that can be specified with a 5-speed manual or Peugeot’s Ecomatique automatic gearbox. The second option is the 1.0 Vti three cylinder petrol with 82bhp and mated to a 5-speed manual. The 1.0 is ideal if you do most of your driving around town, but if your daily commute involves some motorway driving, then the 1.2 is the better option as it is marginally more refined at motorway speeds.
The Peugeot 108 shares its underpinnings with the Citroen C1 and the Toyota Aygo so all three pretty much feel similar behind the wheel. Suspension improvements however have been made to the 108 over the 107 predecessor giving it a much more supple ride, and a more comfortable motorway driver. There is not much power from either of the engines, but if you push it to its limits, the 108 has reassuring grip and composure in the corners. Road and wind noise is kept to a minimum while the 1.2Vti is reasonably refined at motorway speeds.
The 108 comes with a choice of three trim levels. These are Active, Allure and Top. The Active is well kitted out as standard with air-conditioning, electric front windows, a multi-function 7 inch touch screen that houses the infotainment system and Bluetooth capability. If you go for the Top trim, you get additional items like leather seats, keyless go and ambient lighting. There are also many options to tick on the list like a leather steering wheel and gear knob, metallic paint and even a retractable canvas roof. (Available on the Top spec)
The Peugeot 108 competes against well built rivals like the Volkswagen Up! Skoda Citigo and SEAT Mii, but the Peugeot easily competes on ride and quality. The dashboard is well laid out and constructed from good quality materials with contrast gloss finishes. It has a customisable feel about it too with colour schemes to choose from to match the exterior. The seats are comfortable too and there is enough adjustability in the driver seats and steering for any sized adult to get comfortable behind the wheel.
The Peugeot 108 scored 4/5 stars in Euro NCP crash testing bringing it in line with the majority of its competitors. It is a very safe small car with a generous level of safety tech as standard. This includes electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, ISO-FIX, hill start assist and six airbags. You can specify further features like a reversing camera from the options list.
The Peugeot 108 is quite practical considering its compact size. Thanks to its five door configuration, access to the rear seats is excellent and it will take four adults at a push, but this would only be advised for short journeys. While headroom is good, legroom in the rear is tight. Three children however will be perfectly happy in the back seat. Boot space is 180 litres which is not the biggest in class, but without the space saver spare wheel, capacity is increased to 196 litres. The rear seats also fold in a 50:50 split to open the full back of the cabin for storage of large luggage items.