Out & About Winter 2018

MAURICE AND ANNETTE HARDY put the Caravan Club and the Caravan and Motorhome Club award-winning Peugeot 3008 to the test MOTORS

Car: Peugeot 3008 Allure BlueHDi 180 EAT8 Does it fit your ego... 0-62 mph: 9 secs

Top speed: 134mph Bhp: 180 @ 3,750rpm Torque: 400Nm @ 1,750rpm and your wallet... Price: £30,600 Combined: 57.6mpg CO2 emissions: 129g/km

T owing caravans for a hobby goes back a long way, as do the many jokes about the huge queues that can build up behind them. These days, caravans are sophisticated bits of kit and so, indeed, are the cars that pull them. All sorts of electronic gizmos can assist drivers – whether it’s reversing cameras that help line up tow hitch and caravan or technology that stops the caravan from snaking as it travels behind the car. Towing as a popular pastime also means that judging tow cars is a regular occurrence. Both the Camping and Caravan Club and the Caravan and Motorhome Club have their contests, the latter the most recent to declare its particular list of winners. While the big SUVs and pick-up trucks are ever-present, joining them this year was the Peugeot 3008 Allure BlueHDi 180 EAT8 in the 1,100kg to 1,300kg category. Caravans in that weight range are fairly substantial, while the car itself is a comfortable home for a family of four while on the move. The judges praised the 3008 for its eye-catching interior and exterior, great fuel economy and for being a very capable all-rounder. “The Peugeot scored highly in all the tests and its stability at all speeds really impressed the judges,” the club reported. In fact, every winner of the bigger

when kids need to be kept amused on a long trip. The interior is dominated by the instrument cluster that can be arranged to suit the driver’s preferences and the square steering wheel, necessary to ensure a clear view of said instruments. It’s visually interesting, but not really sensible because the steering wheel sits very low to remain beneath the instruments and the rim design doesn’t suit older and stiffer fingers. The plan for this car was a long trip over almost three weeks, but the car we wanted, with electric driver’s seat adjustment, didn’t arrive and the manual adjustment on the Allure trim just didn’t cut the mustard when it came to the infinite moves needed to be perfectly placed behind the wheel. It’s a shame, as the substitute car (our own) was good, but there were aspects of the 3008 with the latest Euro 6.2 engine and EAT8 automatic transmission, which gives eight speeds that swap very smoothly between them. There’s a Sport button to spice things up a bit by holding back the changes to give the car some extra edge. It makes the drive all the more interesting and back routes can be fun because the car handles well. Economy, maxxing at 48mpg, but sometimes far less, could be better for this size of car. But, all-in-all, the 3008 does its job well.

weight categories was a full 4x4, but not so the Peugeot or the car that won the up-to-1,100kgs category, the VW Polo. Peugeot quote an official towing limit for the car of 2,000kgs, but that might be hard work unless the optional Grip Control is selected to give virtually all the performance of a 4x4 without the mechanical complication. The limitation here might be that weight transfer as the car pulls away could lift the front wheels, which are still doing all the work, sufficiently to diminish their grip. Best bits: good all-rounder In its favour, the Peugeot has quite a bulky body that offers 591 litres of load space with all the seats in place and 1,670 litres, when configured as a two seater. It’s possible to ring the changes on folding the back seats to vary the capacity between the two so in fact it’s a versatile car for those who like to carry plenty. Part of the towing test is assessing the car’s ability to swallow all the clobber that goes with caravanning and the 3008 should have found that easy. It helps that the car is quite chunky, a look emphasised by the high waistline and narrow glazing. The downside to that is an awareness of sitting low down in the car and that’s maybe not such a good thing

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