Finding a true French legend from the 80’s has become increasingly difficult, mostly as they were never the most solid cars around – more on that later. Still, given I spend as much time as possible in southern France these days, the place to find one should logically be on a narrow street in Nice. But of course, according to the law that things never happen as you expect them to, that’s not what happened. The below beauty was parked centrally in Zurich, very close to my office. And what a car it was!
The Peugeot 205 GTI is, next to the VW Golf GTI, the most iconic hot hatch from the 80’s, and the only one that can really compete with the latter in terms of brilliance, and these days, price. It’s almost four years ago that we looked at it, and to me, it’s at the top of my list of hot hatches of any period, were I to get one one day (which I most probably won’t, since it isn’t really my thing, also not for down here in France for which it’s both far too nice).
Describing a hot hatch from more than 30 years ago as luxurious is perhaps pushing it, but there’s no doubt the GTI was the fancier car when compared to its sibling, the 205 Rallye pictured here – the real hard core version in the 205 line-up! It was created as a cheaper and simpler alternative to the more expensive and mechanically more complex GTI, although calling its grand daddy mechanically complicated today is almost laughable.
The Rallye was derived from the base version of the 205, whereby the volume of its original 1.1 litre four-pot was increased to 1.3 litres and about 105 hp. Given that still wasn’t much to brag about, the engineers at Peugeot-Talbot Sport resorted to the cheapest way possible to reduce the car’s weight, namely to remove sound-deafening and other isolation material not deemed strictly necessary. Tada – the trick was done and the Rallye now weighed in at a very modest 800 kg (794 to be exact). it didn’t improve the comfort of course, but rapidly made the car popular among the many aspiring young rally drivers France has always been blessed with!
The Rallye also inherited the front suspension and ventilated disc breaks from the 1.6 GTI, keeping the same drum brakes in the rear. The interior (except then for the removed isolation) is also reminiscent of its bigger brother, but the exterior is cleaner, especially in white as they car I saw, and with those wonderful, 80’s-like white wheels (these were however not original, those were also white, however in steel). There was really no doubt that the car I saw had been restored, as it was really in perfect condition, including on the inside.
The Rallye had a far shorter life than the GTI, being produced only between 1988 and 1992, and only sold in a handful of countries in central Europe. Peugeot had initially planned for 5.000 cars but in the end, no less than 30.000 would be built. The Rallye was thus a success, also since it was a car that was really rewarding when you drove it hard. Unfortunately, that together with the quite thin body parts, have contributed to few cars remaining today. As you may remember (or just have read) from my story of the 205 from four years ago, that particular car was written off following a collision that was certainly not nothing, but also not something that would really trouble a car today.
That makes the Rallye even rarer today than the 205 GTI, but price-wise, they fetch around the same money, which is about EUR 25-30.000 for the best cars (and that’s by the way almost twice the money compared to four years ago). The real issue is however finding one – including in France, where even the GTI is not only rare, but today fetches the same price as in other countries, something that wasn’t the case for quite a long time.
I bet this driver doesn’t think about the money though, driving his 205 Rallye, but rather the purest form of driving pleasure, miles from the 1.5 ton hot hatches built today. I just hope he keeps it on the road and avoids close contact with other cars – both for himself and the car!
The Thrill of Driving 