Peugeot is aiming to recreate its 1980s success at Pikes Peak in the 21st century with a 208 T16 and Sébastien Loeb
Twenty-five years ago FIA President Jean Todt was running the Peugeot motorsport programme. He decided to send his star driver Ari Vatanen (who would later be his rival for the FIA presidency) to Colorado to compete in the world’s most famous hillclimb event: Pikes Peak.
Started in 1916, it was first won by Indycar driver Ralph Mulford in a Hudson in 18m24.70s. The course begins at 9,390 feet above sea level and climbs 4,700 feet over a distance of 12.42 miles, snaking through 156 different corners, some of them with very dramatic drops if you make a mistake. It used to be largely a dirt road, but in recent years it has been progressively paved, and last year was the first in which the entire course was run on tarmac. The result was a new record of 9m46.164s, set by Rhys Millen in a Hyundai Genesis Coupé.
Back in 1988 Vatanen’s goal in his four-wheel-drive, four-wheel-steering, six-speed, ground-effects, 1.9-litre turbo, winged Peugeot 405, which had around 700 horsepower, was to beat the record established the previous year by Walter Röhrl’s Audi Quattro: 10m47:85s. The resulting run became an award-winning film which has since become a celebrated viral on YouTube, but the Finn beat Rohrl’s time by only a fraction of a second, setting a new record of 10m47:77s. In the years that followed, ever-improving technology and a better surface saw the record coming down and in 2010 Japan’s Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima became the first man to climb the hill in under 10 minutes in his Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special, setting a new record of 9m51.28s.
Now Peugeot has decided to reclaim the record and has built the Peugeot 208 T16 and on June 30 this year multiple World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb will drive a new 208 T16 hopefully to the top and to a new record.
The car features a lightweight tubular steel chassis with a mid-mounted V6 bi-turbo, derived from the unit in the Peugeot 908 endurance racing car, which develops 875 horsepower. The car weighs 875 kilograms, which gives it a pretty impressive power-to-weight ratio. It can accelerate from 0-62mph in 1.8 seconds, 0-124mph in 4.8 seconds and it reaches its maximum speed of 149mph in seven seconds.