If you’ve never been inside a small Euro-hatch with a relatively small diesel engine and a quirky design, the Peugeot 206 is as good a car to start with as any.
Think of this as a “quick-drive review” by the man behind the Regular Cars YouTube channel, who for some reason always wanted to drive a Peugeot 206, thinking it looked great in pictures.
Europeans of course know just how popular the 206 was (they’re still making it in Iran), and many considered it quite pretty back when it first came out no fewer than 19 years ago.
This particular 12-year old 206 is a 1.6-liter HDI diesel model, which had 110 PS (108 HP) and 191 lb-ft (260 Nm), and on paper could hit 60 mph (96 km/h) in about 10 seconds. It’s also an extraordinarily easy car to drive, which the reviewer noticed almost immediately after setting off.
In the end, he found the 206 to be surprisingly fun and came away impressed – which is probably not something you’ll hear from most people who actually owned the car since it was never the most reliable thing in the world to begin with.