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By EWAN
KENNEDY
30 November 2009
European car makers, apparently wisely at the time, refrained from
entering the SUV market for many years. They generally felt it
would be a passing fad and that buyers would return to driving
small economical cars. That didn’t happen, so European car
companies are now scrambling around catching up on SUV designs.
Peugeot is the latest to do so, with a medium-duty model called
the 4007. Rather than outlay enormous sums of research and
development money and starting from scratch, the iconic French
marque formed an alliance with the Japanese Mitsubishi company.
Look at the side and the back of the new for 2010 Peugeot 4007 and
you will see a vehicle that looks suspiciously like a Mitsubishi
Outlander ... because that's what it is.
At the front, though, the 4007 is most definitely a Peugeot. The
‘wide-mouth’ look that has caused controversy amongst car
lovers for the last few years is most evident in the new SUV. Stop
and look at the pics for a moment – it couldn’t be anything
other than a Peugeot could it? And that's a great asset in these
times when people complain that all cars look the same.
Interestingly, the new Peugeot 4007 is sold with either five or
seven seats.
Appearances aside, there's a lot of Peugeot under the bonnet of
the 4007. The company has been developing some excellent
turbo-diesel engines lately, and the 2.2-litre four-cylinder unit
behind that big grille is one of the latest designs. Torque of 250
Nm is produced when the engine is turning at only 1250 revs, and
reaches its peak of a hefty 380 Nm at 2000 rpm.
The engine is fitted with an exhaust particulate filter to further
minimise already-low pollutant levels. Not many manufacturers
choose to do this as the Australian emission regulations are less
stringent that the European ones. Full marks to Peugeot for doing
this.
The confidence of the Australian Peugeot importer in this diesel
engine is shown by the fact that no petrol powered 4007s are
offered. Transmission options are a five-speed manual and
six-speed double-clutch automatic. These choices vary from model
to model so check with your dealer to see if they can provide the
exact specification to meet your needs.
Peugeot rates the vehicle as being capable of towing up to two
tonnes if the caravan/trailer has brakes fitted.
Mitsubishi has been an expert in the 4WD field for many decades so
the Peugeot 4007 uses the latest systems as seen in the Outlander.
However, Peugeot is famed for its smooth riding and
driver-oriented suspension dynamics, so the 4007 looks like having
the best of both worlds. At this time we haven’t been able to
test drive the new Peugeot 4007 as the first batch of imports is
extremely limited. We anticipate getting into on in the first few
weeks of 2010.
The complete Peugeot 4007 range, with prices (excluding government
and dealer delivery charges) is:
ST 2.2-litre diesel five-seat wagon: $45,490 (manual), $47,990
(automatic)
ST 2.2-litre diesel seven-seat wagon: $49,190 (automatic)
SV 2.2-litre diesel seven-seat wagon: $54,190 (automatic)
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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