Being uglier than the car you replace is never a recipe for success. But it does mean you end up being cheap down the road…
Well, will you looky here: an attractive 11-year-old coupe in good nick with a low mileage and a 208hp 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine under the bonnet for a tad over £2k?
Okay straight away some will decry the Peugeot badge, although I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t if it were attached to a 205 GTI or a 106 GTI or a 405 Mi16 4×4. Some might even be tempted to note with a sneer that the 407 Coupe was not, like its predecessor the extraordinarily graceful 406 Coupe, designed by Pininfarina. In fact its long, flowing, and from some angles slightly awkward, lines were actually drawn in-house. It’s not as pretty as Lily James, admittedly, but it’ll give Harry Styles a good run for his money.
In fairness, the 407 Coop definitely doesn’t have the panache of the delicate 406 two-door, but in its defence it’s aged rather well and is still quite a handsome thing, especially in the dark colour of the car we’ve found. There are, of course, the three angled and non-functional vents or gills ahead of the front wheels, aping Ferraris of old, and also helping to draw the eye away from that rather long front overhang and gaping grille. On top of that it’s two inches wider in the tracks than the 407 saloon on which it’s based and longer and lower, and in fact every external panel on the coupe is unique to it.
Even more importantly it’s stiffer, too, which in combination with the saloon’s neat front double wishbone suspension makes for a fine-handling and sweet-riding GT car. Alas this one is equipped with a manual gearbox, and a rather slow, wide-gated manual gearbox it is too. Blessed is he who specified the automatic option.
A GT, note, not a sports car. It may have a V6 but this is a hefty old nose-heavy Hector and performance is nothing special. Sales were nothing special, either, especially of this haut de gamme and extremely expensive 3.0-litre V6 petrol version, which partly explains the low sticker price on this beauty. Indeed Peugeot dropped all petrol engines from the 407 coupe range in 2009, after slow sales, so think of this as a bit of a collector’s car – a rarity, if you will.
Consequently, if you can put up with the manual ‘box you’ve got yourself quite a good buy for a couple of grand. It’ll do 150mph, and it’s more leathery inside than Alan Sugar’s face. Dynamically it’s capable, and at a cruise almost refined. It might have seemed a bit pointless new but at this age and price perhaps it finally makes some sense.
Mark Pearson
SPECIFICATION – Peugeot 407 Coupe
Engine: 2946cc V6
Transmission: six-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 208@6,250rpm
Torque (lb ft): 214@4,500rpm
MPG: 27.7
CO2: 242g/km
First registered: 2007
Recorded mileage: 70,000miles
Price new: £26,700
Yours for: £2170
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