Committed cornering in this Peugeot feels like it resembles those wild pictures that fill the 1980s Autocar road testing archive and yet it’s all without loss of control or momentum.
Crucially, you will be having a ball at speeds markedly below the 60mph single-lane limit, which no modern performance car – even a lot of recently retired hot hatches – can truly claim.
The engine is hard work, mind, but with the increasingly rare five-speed manual of John’s car, you will relish playing your role. Just prepare to use third – occasionally even second – on hills like these. Anyone familiar with a 205 GTi of the same era might relish the four-cylinder rasp that accompanies it all too, even if the two don’t actually share an engine.
The 505 breathes with the road and builds your confidence, all helped along by its slim hips and abundant glass. Cars like these may crumple in crash tests but they don’t need to be draped in cameras and sensors like tinsel on a tree, either.
The basis of a really good car – of Peugeot’s famed ride and handling balance – courses through it, though it does give the vibe of a repmobile done good rather than an outright performance hero, which perhaps explains its comparative scarcity alongside 205s now.
But isn’t every car maker’s range all the better for having cars like this on the price list? Flawed as the modern 508 may be, it’s already missed, and we can only hope the increasingly spicy EV powertrains being deployed elsewhere in the Stellantis group can find their way into future fast Peugeots. If the supple 505 GTi can inform how they drive, all the better.
Because alongside it, the PSE places too many layers between you and its thoughts. It’s a very accomplished car that can cover ground quickly but you often feel like you’re having a conversation with someone in another room rather than face to face.
Perhaps it’s a little mean to point that out, because broadly this is a car I really rather like. Knowing the areas where it could be sharper simply frustrates rather than outright offends.
