Tony Blews

Peugeot 406

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the head of a major European car manufacturer woke up in the morning with a wonderful dream. He'd dreamed of conquering the saloon car market, formerly the realm of the Mondeo, using a combination of engineering expertise and cunning styling.

Ooh-la-la, he thought, we wipe the floor in the small car market, surely we can clean up with beeger cars. Ve vill make eet beeg unt all vill luff us, he thought, strangely confusing his accent for some piss-poor comic effect.

What he's forgotten was that a long long time ago, someone else had gone through the same thought process, although without the needlessly jingoistic and blatantly anti-euro stereotyping.

Back in the before-time, in the long-long-ago, before Moses went hiking, the world was ruled by a small, cute, and above all cheap wee critter. Everyone loved it. It was the darling of the people. And then they made a bigger one.

Give it four doors, the then un-titled demographic people cried, for surely it will be better if you can get all your family in without pissing about with the seating position. Make it with a boot, they said, and make the bonnet longer. And, while we're at it, make it wider, heavier, crapper to drive and above all, more likely to piss green water out on the side of the M6 on a Bank Holiday. And, in a stroke of genius, call it what was the opposite of its predescessor. And make it more expensive.

And thus, they turned a car that everyone loved for its style, handling, style, economy, style and watertightness, and created a car that was the complete opposite.

They had turned the Mini into the Maxi, and inadvertantly invented Morris dancing along the way.

Surely, if Mr. Peugeot had known his automotive history he'd have put his dream down to a bad attack of rancid brie, but no. He pushed and pushed and finally managed to extrude this: The 406.

A car so dull, unimaginative and, quite frankly, pants, that not even the staring role in the French version of "Taxi" could make it seem interesting.

There is a car that has no redeeming features whatsoever.

For a "large" car, the driver's leg room is cramped, to the point of forcing us giants to drive with our feet at a 45 degree angle, thus neatly covering all three pedals with one army-boot. The clever trip computer regularly tells you that you're out of fuel, ten minutes after filling up (in extreme cases, such as the two I've driven recently, the car automatically cuts off the fuel supply to prevent damage to the complex gubbins in the engine. After about twenty five miles. So, either they really do only one mile per three litres, or they are severely fucked).

Handling wise, the 406 wallows like a pissed up cow, and steers like a truculent goat. It accelerates like a sloth and brakes like Gresley's Mallard. I can honestly say that given the choice between having Lawrence Olivier as my dentist and driving a 406 ever again, I'd opt for the Dustin Hoffman option.

And finally, as Sir Trevor says, they look shit.