PEUGEOT 807 test drive since 2002 minivan

House on the road

This car is like a magic box from Andersen's fairy tales. It has many secret drawers, throughout the way from Paris to Brussels and back I am amusing, finding them here and there. It is possible to travel between these, as they said in the old days, by Hanseatic cities, but much more intricate through the duchy of Luxembourg, the smallest state of the EU ... Presenting this mini-van as a perfect new product, the company Peugeot, of course, is cunning: they took it as a basis for the basis Tested by the time and roads of the 806th. They made it since 1994 in the north of France, in the town of Valencienn, at the company Societe Europeenne de Vehicules Legers du Nord, or Sevel Nord. The Northern European Association for the production of light cargo-passenger cars produces mini-wen at once four brands: Citroen, Fiat, Lancia and Peugeot. By the way, there is a southern association, the Italian Sevel Sud, which produces Fiat and PSA Peugeot-Citroen for the group of our sables and gazelles. About forty years ago, a similar project would be unthinkable: each of its possible participants would not have made ambitions. Now cooperation is beneficial to everyone. Say, for Lancia, which sells only 130 thousand cars a year, it would be consistent to develop its own mini-ven. More than a third of the annual 100 thousand mini-wenes draws the most from the source in Valensien Peugeot. The new project, Projet Cinq, demanded an investment of 650 million euros. Cars received, as you know, the names Citroen C8, Fiat Ulysse, Lancia Phedra and Peugeot 807.


So it's time to get acquainted. The dark-sewage block of the mini-wen was found at minus the fourth level of the bottomless parking of the main Office of Peugeot on the Paris Grand Armet. The car is so tightly squeezed into the concrete niche that it is necessary to penetrate the driver's place through the shift passenger door. Here it is, the main trick, invented by the creators of the car! As soon as I pulled the handle, I put the mechanism into effect, and the door independently drove aside. The device’s electric motor lives in the back of the body, the cable drive, the cable stretches in the groove along the rear wing. The device is supplied by the famous American company Delphi (the amount of this contract is 28 million euros), and it was developed in its research center in the German city of Wuppertal. For Europe, such doors are new, but in America Delphi has been producing them since 1993. Peugeot now intends to introduce, for the first time in the world, a similar node on small class models. In general, there are many surprises in the 807th. It is advertised in France, like a focus cylinder with a rabbit inside. Offhand an aluminum roof, plastic wings and rear hatch, a record in area (1.95 m sq.) Water glass ...


Today, the well-known advantages of mini-wen are timidly trying to adopt other types of cars. He entered the back door, slipped between the front seats (even the hand brake lever was moved to the driver's door so that he didn’t interfere with the sniffing), and already at the wheel. From such a captain’s bridge, it would be a ocean yacht, and then you have to boil considerable in size mini-ven from concrete dungeons. The edge of the hood is not visible, no matter how you stretch your neck. And okay, we talk. The turning of the key, external mirrors opened with light buzzing, went. At first, sneaking, and now you can live ...


Acquaintance with the car is somewhat akin to the housewarming: the joy of the discoverer is mixed, the easy does not, the fear of breaking something, the desire to furnish everything in their own way. Mini-wen real house on wheels. The home sensation intensifies every time when you use short stops at traffic lights to get burned.


The interior was created, as designers say, with three pencil strokes. Before the eyes of the spacious panel, which is covered with a slightly rough to the touch with synthetic material, resembling an orange peel in texture. In the middle of the lights of St. Elma, the round -meter, speedometer and pointer of the fuel and coolant temperature shine. A arched eyebrow hung over the lights from side to side. It not only saves from solar glare on dials, but also visually extends the space. Under the instruments of the cascade are an information display, ventilation grilles, music. Even below the protrusion in the form of a shield, on which, in addition to the lever gearbox, there was also a place for the control unit with secondary functions, an emergency button and an avant-garde ashtray with a transparent cover. It would seem much more? But there was no sophlerian booth right on the steering column, inside of which the odometer display and control lamps. In addition, a small console is ascended to the ceiling. At first glance, such a pile is devoid of any logic, but it never once strained on a trip.


I have long noticed that designers of automobile interiors refuse to roll over with the appearance of the machine. Outside the 807th logical development of the 806th. A lobed hood, huge, slightly slanting headlights, a cross -member under them, focusing on a large emblem, a predatory air intake in the bumper ... a appearance tailored in the line of company trends, in which everyone will see that it wants from friendliness to aggressiveness. And he will think to himself: this is what I was waiting for.


The interior, on the contrary, is unexpected. It is unlikely that it will be possible to find at least a thin thread connecting it with the previous model or with other modern Peugeot.


It was then that the opening of all kinds of containers, cavities and holders began. Where to put the travel card (in France are paid)? And under the lid, right behind the steering wheel! From the side of the passenger, under the exactly the same lid, there were cells (8 pieces) for the plates captured on the road. Road maps and guides, as they accumulate, filled out roomy door pockets. Cola (beer along the French highways is not sold and even forbidden to drink in restaurants)? The cabinet, crowned with a gear lever, contains a cooled box into three banks, over which a whole battery of holders turns (again, magically moving out of the cabinet). Do not forget about an 18-liter glove compartment in a traditional place. Gradually settled. Like Makarevich: and finally I found peace, I take my new house with me ...


The rear seats in this car are installed not on the soot, but on the 150 mm lengths built into the floor. Clutch the key, tilt your back forward, turn the entire chair vertically and roll it up for a bracket specially invented behind. The headrests do not need to be removed. The system is called Quickfix. Installation in the reverse order: rollers in the guides, rolled the chair to the click, returned to a horizontal position, raised his back. On the back of the seats there are red straps, pulling for each of which, you can adjust the step between the rows.


If you ignore the question of where to put the extracted seats, a bunch of wonderful opportunities opens before you. For example, you can buy an antique chest of drawers on a flea market in Paris in Paris and deliver it, say, to Brussels. (We will continue in brackets: and then return to Paris for your seats.) But it is much more pleasant to turn the backs of the middle row into tables and arrange a picnic. The front seats unfold, and the interior turns into a small living room. In a word, fantasize!


The 807th was developed at the research center in the quarry-hoo-Puass using the latest virtual Cave technology (virtual spatial environment). Stereochochka, management joystick and engineer are inside the three -dimensional computer model of the car (or near any of its units). It is convenient to work with mirage: individual components can be painted in contrasting colors, rotated with one finger, as it seems, simultaneously check the collection of nodes, find stress concentrators, etc. The results are evident.


Probably, the day when such technologies will get to the modeling of driving qualities of the car. In the meantime, I have to note that the second of the three of the three tested novelties of Peugeot are lacking in balance in the setting of the chassis. In the Peugeot 307, I remember, it was alerted by the insidious development of a skid for discharge of gas in a family, in fact, a car, such a manifestation of the features of its layout scheme could be smoothed out. In the 807th another. This is called excessive sensitivity to the side wind. Autumn violent streams, accelerating over the North Sea, easily reached the French hinterland and shook mini-wen in vain. Of course, the increased sailing of a feature of all cars with such a body. But it was mainly tired that the deviations from the course had to be monitored not through the reaction of the muscles, but with the eyes. This is because the steering wheel 807th has small sensitivity in the near-Stolium zone, and this excludes the fastest reaction of the driver. The ride at a speed of 130-150 km/h openly annoyed, since with each overtaking the tractor with the semi-trailer the mini-van had to be caught.


On the other hand, the turns on the Peugeot 807 are confident, with a well -readed feedback on the steering wheel and with moderate insufficient rotation. The reaction to the discharge of gas is very restrained. In corners, the car is less fucked than you could expect from a mini-wen. The suspension of the car, which was covered in comparison with the 806th more than 150 kg, was subjected to significant work. The rear bridge with a twisted beam and longitudinal levers here is completely new, and the stabilizer in the front suspension now has a diameter of 22 mm. With an advanced suspension, the car demonstrates good smoothness, without swinging and biting. However, all this was checked in an unloaded car.


The motor (five possible options, in my mini-wen stood a 2.2-liter 158-horsepower gasoline) provides confident traction from the lower classes, forgiving errors in the choice of transmission. Excellent sound insulation of the salon also works on the illusion of your infallibility. The elasticity of the motor is largely explained by the variable phases of gas distribution in the second program are perfectly overcome by the famous Parisian traffic jams and the less famous congestion of the Belgian capital.


A mini-wen car in which special attention is paid to the children's factor. For example, the door blocking button in the Peugeot 807 was transferred to the ceiling console so difficult to reach it. Each of the seats is adapted for installing a children's chair even the front right (when placing a child there, you need to deactivate a passenger airbag with a ignition key). An interesting detail: an additional salon mirror is provided specifically so that mom or dad while driving keep visual contact with children on the way without turning to them. In general, the mini-wen is only in yellow to paint like a school bus. Needless to say, other passive and active safety measures are represented by a long list of effective brakes with perfectly dosage on the pedals up to six airbags and automatic locking of the rear hatch with a growth of higher than 10 km/h. Indeed, all this today we have the right to expect from a modern car.


P.S. Returning to Moscow, I compared the brochures in the 807th and 806th models of the Peegeot mini-wen. The approach of advertisers is surprisingly template. And here, and there is mom and dad, daughter and son, and a golden labrador in addition. That's just the children in Peugeot 807 look a little older. I wonder if this is due to the fact that the novelty is more expensive than the 806th and less accessible to the young family?
 
Denis Orlov
 

Source: Motor magazine [April 2003]