Recently Gentlemans Butler was invited to a test track day at Brands Hatch to drive the Peugeot RCZ_R+
You can watch our great day out and see how it glides round the track as if it’s on rails. After I had gone round myself I asked if the test driver would give me a few laps with him driving.
Was that a wise question I ask !!!
I grew up with Formula 1 on the BBC, names like Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Alan Prost, Ayrton Senna and many more gave driving a romance.
My grandfather was a test driver and mechanic for Bentley in the 20’s, an era of amazing automobile history.
And watching F1 on the BBC with Murray Walker and James Hunt was certainly an engaging experience.
I have worked with people who made the film Grand Prix.
In fact growing up in the Surrey Hills one could say I lived in The Hollywood of Formula 1.
I grew up in the countryside where as a teenager my Saturdays were often spent in the garage with my brother fixing cars, changing oils and tweaking carburettors.
In fact it was with great joy to my brother that my mother had bought that particular house as it had an inspection pit, something that was put to great use.
So you can see I have had some real love for cars, and at one point wanted to drive rally cross however you might be amazed to hear I do not own a car and living in central London have not done for some time, however to some degree this makes my interaction with cars more special.
My connection to Peugeot all comes from the famous 205 which was a car of its era, and I remember fondly driving a softop 205 in Switzerland when my brother married.
Now we could get our Top Trump cards out (gosh that shows my age) and in a James May styli talk about the history of the company, drag coefficient, torque, breaking speed, cc’s and all the other minute details men in suburban pubs, drinking real ale like to talk about but I am a romantic, and as such like women to look beautiful and love it when practicality is thrown out the window and we talk about passion and emotion….
Gosh I have now lost half the male readers ….did he say the word emotion …..
For me if you are buying a sports car I think like the Italians I want some sex appeal.
Does it look pretty, is it fast, does it handle well and do I feel like a sex god driving it.
I cannot answer the final question however I do know Clarkson liked it…
Click here to watch – The Stig drives the Peugeot RCZ Top Gear Track
See Peugeot’s website for more details
