Following close on the heels of the spy photos doing the rounds in the Internet for a few days now, the official announcement of the Peugeot 508 has now taken place. The body style would be in sedan and station wagon styles. These are going to be replacements of the 407 and 607. It is at the Paris Motor Show that the French marque’s Ford Mondeo and the Volkswagen Passat challenger would be making its debut. The show is scheduled for late September and sales are expected early next year.
The 5 by Peugeot was the concept car based on which the 508 is being built. The concept car was viewed in March in Geneva. Peugeot has stated that the design of the 508 would be closer to the SR1 concepts sports car. It can be expected therefore to see the future Peugeot models sporting the same grille design.
The interior of the 508 car is the perfect combination of hi-tech features as well as high quality material that have been used to do up the interior.
The car has been built upon the same platform which is also the one where the Citreon 5 as the outgoing 407 models has been made. The 508 therefore is a model that can be said to be sitting between 407 and 607 as far as size goes. By length the 508 is 4.79 meters and the sedan variant is 100 mm longer than the 407 saloon. It is however shorter by 100 mm when compared to the 607. In case of the Station wagon, it is slightly longer than the sedan which measures 4.81 meters in length.
Not much of technical details have been divulged by Peugeot about the 508. They have however confirmed that a hybrid 4 version would also most likely be available by mid 2011. The hybrid would be a combination of turbo diesel engine that would be mounted at the front of the car and an electric motor mounted at the rear. The combined power that would be generated would be 200 hp. It would be an all wheel drive and the emission factor is expected to be around 99 g/km of CO2 which comes down to zero while running in fully electric mode.
The 508 would come in a variety of petrol and diesel engines as per the French automaker. This would ensure maximum benefit is extended from the fuel saving technologies as well as the start and stop system.
Rennes in France is where the European market versions of the 508 will be produced while Peugeot has also announced making the car in China for the local market and that would start next year.
Source: carscoop
