Car manufacturers are chasing the bottom-line these days. It is all about profits and staying in the black rather than in the red. This is obviously good business practise as who the heck goes into business to lose money. And because of this we have Mitsubishi deciding to soldier on with the Lancer for a good while longer and companies like Peugeot deciding to cut its current range of 26 cars to a slender 13. Cost cutting really rears its head here.
We're going to see cars like the 108, 208, 308, 408 and the 508 as well as the crossovers and people carriers. Sadly we're not going to see a new RCZ. Peugeot head honcho Maxime Picat told Autocar recently that they're not going to replace that stunning return to form coupe.
"I love the RCZ, but I want us to focus on making the best of our core models, from Peugeot 108 upwards, and to exploit what we then have to the best of our abilities. For each of those cars we can choose attributes and be the best. Chasing niches is for premium brands; for us it has been a distraction.” said Picat.
Now aside from its seriously good looks for a small and relatively affordable coupe this car is fun to drive (in the 190hp manual form and not the 156hp automatic version - which needs the extra horses to go wild). It has really been awhile that a Peugeot has been true to its roots. These days their cars do not actually glide over bumps and potholes nor do many of their warmer hatches actually like cocking up a rear wheel in anger. Let's just hope the RCZ stays in production awhile longer. Let's also hope that manufacturers go crazy once in awhile too.
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