206 GTi 180

A few pics of the replacement for my troublsome GP it is not shiney clean as i haven't been able to get my arse out of the drivers seat as it is such a hoot to drive.

like the seats

Sweet

Excellent choice of car.

Troy.

Absolutely spot on, very nice indeed.

Cheers Guys the seats are as nice to sit in as they look too

I Actually had been looking for a Civic Type R but i just couldn't find a good one for the money i wanted to spend. I came accross this by accident and i can't stress enough it is absolutely immacualte not a single mark on the interior or paintwork, no scuffs on the nice 17" alloys (and a full new set of Pirelli p7000's),

The car has done 20K miles from new and obviously owned by an enthusiast. There is every receipt for what has been spent on the car, plus a spreadsheet with every fuel fill up, mileage, qty, MPG and price from the day the car left the showroom.

That is one hell of a history .

Not bad for a frenchie either

Very nice buy Allan

How are you enjoying the drive so far?

Are the chassis and the engine any good? I've head that the 206 GTi didnt live up as the replacement to the 106 GTi however I've not heard if the 206 GTi 180 resolved this problem

looking good

It is a hoot, 180BHP in something this size is just so wrong but just so right.

The engine is addictive and the gear ratio's are well spaced, it will rev and rev but i've found changing up at 7,000rpm is enough (you will be going at very illegal speeds by the time you need to change up to 3rd ) and the noise is just fantastic, but on the flip side it is happy to crawl quietly along at 40mph in 5th

Handling wise it is very good, how it compares to predecessors i have no idea. I had a 309 GTi a long time ago and the 180 seems better than i remeber the 309 being but i think that is just because it is generally just more civalised and it was a long time ago. What i can say though is it is more than up to the job and it will corner at speeds that you wouldn't even think of attempting in other cars, if you reach the limits on the public road in a 180 you deserve everthing you get.

I let my brother have a drive yesterday and he is a serving police advanced driver so drives different stuff all the time. Even he says "it is one of the nicest handling cars he has driven in a long time maybe not the best but the nicest", so i'll take that as a professional endorsment. After driving the Grande Punto for the last 20 months it feels as though somone has installed rails on every corner just for me

The only thing that is a bit frightening though is the fuel consumption

ah, the best french car in quite a while, although a shame it still says 206 on the back

engine is taken from the 80's though isn't it?I recognise those inlet manifolds, tis a 1.9 bx gti 16v engine with an extra 25bhp bolted on, so performance wise its not much better than the 80's version, and from what I've heard, the fuel consumption is worse than a citroen bx's

that said, they handle like a dream, maybe not the best as your friend said, but certainly one of th nicest to play with! very responsive.

although I can never get used to frenchie brakes, where it bites RIGHT at the top, so high that if your trouser leg catchs the brake pedal you loose 8 front teeth on teh dashboard LOL.

enjoy it! engines are damn reliable, although they do run hot, and can be prone to injection overheating/fuel stavation when very hot in traffic = stalling, althoguh that was the old version, I'd have hoped peugeot would have fitted a modern injection system, but from teh sounds of your mpg woe's they probably haven't

Now there's a happy owner if I've ever seen one

Glad to hear that you're enjoying it mate, sounds like it'll be putting a smile on your face for plenty of miles to come

After owning a 1.3MJ 90 GP for almost two years and suffering the turbo that worked in geological time i think most cars would be an improvement

The engine is based on the normal PSA 2 litre 16 valve but it has the VTEC style continually variable valve timing that means it has the best of both worlds low down drivability (which is quite often the issue with rev hungry 16v engines) plus the top end power. So far it's averaging 26MPG which as i am still playing is probably to be expected, going through the previous owners records he was averaging 32.7mpg over his ownership.

so far very please but sure time will tell, only problem of course is that I now don't own a sensible car.... god bless the mid-life crisis

Dunno about the 106 GTi but I found the handling of the 206 GTi to be very good. It was a lot better than the GP Sporting when I drove them back to back. The GTi180 is better still. The problem with the 206 is that it had live under the shadow of the 205 GTi and motor journalists nostalgia for the 205 (that and the cruddy driving position of the 206 ).

The 2L engine in the GTi/GTi180 is different series of engine to the 1.9L 16V used in the BX GTi but they apparently share some parts like the crankshaft from what I have read.

I found the normal 2L in the GTi to more tractable at low revs than the GTi180 2L, but when you opened the taps on the GTi180 it would leave the GTi for dead with all it's top end power. Not to mention the glorious sounding induction note.

Troy.

The only thing I couldn't understand when they realesed this car was the performance, its got 42bhp more than the old 206 gti but only half a second faster to 60 (7.5 in 180 and 8.0 in old gti). Even top speed has only been increased by 7mph, 130 to 137!

Really good looking car, and looks to be as new! Just thought 42bhp would have had more effect.