Peugeot 208 Becomes Car of the 2020 Year in Europe!

Surprisingly, the European car of the year becomes… PEUGEOT. Weird, ha? People have Tesla, what the hell they need to do with French cars, which are famous for their imperfection and sometimes complete backwardness. Still, a little Peugeot 208 made it beating Tesla Model 3 that was moved back to the second place!

You’ve come to the right place to discover how this happened! Let’s go!

Few Facts about the Contest

The Car of the Year contest is already 56 years old: for the first time, European journalists were choosing the best car in 1964. Finally, the British Rover 2000 sedan took the first prize. 

Peugeot cars became winners five times: back in 1969, the Peugeot 504 took the prize, and then the prize went to Peugeot 405 (1988), Peugeot 307 (2002), Peugeot 308 (2014) and Peugeot 3008 (2017). 

According to the rules, only new updated cars that will go on sale within 12 months prior to the winner announcement can be among the applicants for the “Car of the Year” title. At an intermediate stage, the jury selected seven finalists from the initial list of 30 cars.

The jury consists of 60 automotive journalists from 23 European countries. Only representatives of reputable European automobile magazines can take part. Each jury member has 25 points when choosing a winner: any vehicle can get 10 points maximum, and at least five models must be evaluated. 

208’s Competitors

You might wonder what were the competitors of a small French car. They were:

• BMW 1
• Porsche Taycan
• Ford Puma
• Toyota Corolla
• Renault Clio

We understand your emotions: “I read automobile magazines very often and none of them would name these vehicles ‘car of the year’!” Yeah, we are surprised as well, but this is not the US but Europe, people here like subcompacts, because a large powerful car not only cannot be parked anywhere due to the lack of space on the streets, but you also have to pay much for fuel!

Let’s get away from Dodges and Fords from the US and take a closer look at compact vehicles that are perfect for the everyday life of the average European citizen who prefers driving to the office by car than using a bicycle. They are affordable, comparatively comfortable and open the concept of ‘fuel economy’!

Car of the Year: Leaders

The 208 model got 281 points in the contest. It is followed by Tesla Model 3 with 242 points. Porsche Taycan comes third with 222 points.

The organizers of the contest visited the Palexpo center in Geneva, where they commented on the choice: Peugeot 208 stands out from all the line of competitors due to the choice of power trains. French manufacturer offers this model in three versions ‒ electric, gasoline, and diesel. So, everyone can find what they really need, and the presence of an electric version is really trendy and great for the environment (and also for the driver’s pocket).

In many automobile magazines, journalists discussed the second candidate ‒ Tesla Model 3.

The car achieved great success and gained lots of attention after being introduced in the European market in early 2019, and everyone thought that this all-electric vehicle will win the competition, considering the fact that it has outsold many favorites of EU citizens, for example, BMW 3-Series (though they are gasoline and diesel). All in all, almost 94K Tesla’s Model 3 was sold on the EU market last year.

What’s Next for Peugeot 208?

After becoming the car of the year, 208 is likely to become the bestseller, even not looking at competitors, among which ‒ except Tesla, Porsche and BMW ‒ are Citroen, Opel, and others.

We can’t state whether the prize will draw more attention to the car from the customers’ perspective, so we will see. For us, this is a great option for a small everyday car that will take you to the office and back home with comfort.