1990 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 review from UK and Ireland

Owned the car from new, so a few entries here:

Appalling build quality, so rattles and squeaks throughout from day one.

Poor hot starting / idling from new. Improved by dealer, but never really cured.

Head gasket popped at 14,000 miles (warranty)

Crank angle sensor and ECU at 21,000 miles (warranty)

Rear suspension bushes at 30,000 miles (warranty)

Stolen and recovered twice in a week in 1993 (55,000 miles)

Clutch at 70,000 miles

Rear suspension rebuilt at 95,000 miles to cure banging and pant-soiling oversteer. The standard lift off oversteer of the 205 is pleasant. This was something else altogether.

General odds and ends you'll find in any 13 year old car.

I got this as a company car in 1990 after owning a 1.6 version for three years, and bought it off the company at three years old. If you understand what these cars are about, they just grab you and refuse to let go.

Yes, they're quick, although VTEC Civics and Astra 16v's will just about see them off in a straight line. A good 1.9 kicks out 130 bhp which is pathetic by modern standards, but it's only pushing 800-odd kg along, instead of the 1200-odd of your modern hot hatch. 0-60 in the low 7's and enough top end to get you very seriously banned.

But the corners are the 205's ace. Nobody has ever built a hot hatch that handles or steers like this one. A flick of oversteer here, a little four wheel drift there. Nothing else has this kind of agility, least of all the current batch of hot hatches. You can steer this car as effectively with the throttle as you can with the steering. It is still capable of obliterating pretty much anything on a familiar twisty B-road and can be pushed way past its limits of adhesion and still remain controllable. It does bite, particularly if you lift carelessly when committed to a corner, but it's a small price to pay for this kind of handling performance.

It's a Pug so the build quality is crap, and it does suffer from odd faults now and again. But for a rush and for sticking a grin on your face, the two most important features in a hot hatch, it's still the daddy. Find one before the Max Power lot "improve" them all and destroy the fine balance of attributes that every motoring mag on the planet agree make this little car the most entertaining hot hatch ever built.