Peugeot 301: Low Cost, This Time With Style

Marcelo de Vasconcellos
by Marcelo de Vasconcellos

As evidenced in Matt Gasnier’s most excellent series, the Renault/Dacia/Logan/Sandero/Duster/Lodgy is making waves throughout the world. In a way, the multiple personality car is even present in North America, albeit under a Japanese kimono. Unbeknownst to most up there, when they buy a Nissan Versa, what they are getting is some solid Franco-Romanian engineering with some Japanese know-how thrown in for good measure.

But what is a Logan? And why is it so important?

The Renault/Dacia Logan family is a worldwide hit. Let’s take a look at just how big it is. I’ll be using Matt’s numbers to prove it. Matt’s latest article tallied up the 100 best selling cars all over the world in Q1 2012. The Logan came in at number 46 with 81,158 sales. The Logan-hatch (Sandero) ranks in at 54 (72,278 sales). The Logan-SUV/CUV (Duster) is in position 81 (52,514 sold). There is also the very recently launched Logan-minivan (Lodgy) that managed 117 sales in its first month of sales (March) in France. The Logan family produced a grand total of 206,067 little Logans. As they’re all basically the same car, that total would put them in 4th place worldwide! Just for the sake of argumentation, if one included the Nissan Tiida/Versa/Sunny to the ‘family’, it would take first place from the Corolla. Quite an accomplishment for a solidly unpretentious car developed (largely) by a little known Romanian company.

Numbers aside, the Logan was a quiet revolution. It has prattled the market by offering a B-segment size vehicle with a palpable larger car ride at traditional A-segment prices. It is a hit because it offers (not just) third world denizens a valuable commodity. Room, and thus comfort. The Logan’s wheelbase is longer than a Corolla’s, but the pricing… In Germany, the car became a hot during the cash for clunkers times: A clunker, government largesse and a little pocket change translated into a new car. In Brazil at least it starts off at less than half a Corolla’s price, and I’m pretty sure that would hold true the world over. With it, you get more than enough space to take your family of 5 plus their luggage. It offers a solid ride and dowdy styling. The styling (as it were) is there to cheapen production costs and keep that price down.

In Brazil, Chevrolet has taken a page out of that book and launched the Cobalt (no relation to the American version), with a similarly square style and the bowtie brand (at least in Brazil it’s still worth something). Fiat has grown its Siena in all dimensions, called it Grand and insists the design is its differential. I don’t quite believe, but yes they did, they’re adamant about it! Nissan, Renault’s partner, also got into the act and offers the famous Versa of more back seat legroom than a Bimmer 5 Series (though as an unfortunate side effect of the ‘better’ styling there is headroom only for kids back there!), which wears it Japaneseness on its sleeve and offers that to consumers as its selling point.

Soon, Toyota will jump into the fray with its Etios. The Etios will offer absolutely no styling, but ample internal room and, of course, the brand.

Peugeot then has had a long time to study this successful car and segment. Peugeot has come to the conclusion that its sedan version of the 207 quite lacking. It lacks space, it lacks price and to me at least it sorely lacks style. The car is called Passion, which is strange since it is a car singularly incapable of provoking that feeling.

So now we come to the 301. With it, Peugeot offers the same kind of space as the Logan, hopefully with a similar price, but Peugeot also banks its raison d’être on style. Take a look at the pictures. In them you can see some thought has gone into the design. The new car will sport the new corporate mug. Out are the gaping maw and the feline eyes. In are a more restrained grille and squarish lights.

Square seems to be the name of the game. In the back the 301 is quite square. For developing world consumers the car trunk houses 506L worth of bags. It’s a big car in all dimensions. Its wheelbase is 2.65 m long. Longer than a Jetta, and it beats the Logan’s by a hair. In length, it stretches to 4.44 meters. All very much in the general ethos of the segment. That length makes it longer than the Logan, shorter than the Cobalt, Versa, or, for that matter, Jetta, Corolla or Civic.

The 301will be moved by two gasoline engines and a diesel. The gasoline engines will displace 1.2L (3 cylinders, 72hp), or a more healthy 1.6 (115hp). The diesel is a 1.6 that makes all of 92 horses.

According to Brazilian enthusiast site webmotors.com.br (BTW, all numbers presented here taken from that source and also bestcars.com.br), the car will initially be built in Spain. It will be launched at the Paris Salon de l’Automobile in September, and sales will begin in November. Sorry my dear North Americans, you can’t touch this. If you live in Turkey, Greece, Central and East Europe, the Ukraine, Russia, Gulf States, Middle East and selected African markets, you’ll be able to put your paws on the newest baby lion by the end of the year.

In Latin America, this car will offered in ‘some markets’. Brazil of course, with its great acceptance and tolerance for largish sedans of simple construction will surely be among them. Peugeot do Brasil, much like a lion slumbering in the noon-day tropical sun, has been quite lethargic of late. Expect this car in a dealer near me sometime in mid 2013.

Oh, one more thing. The transmissions. Peugeot talks of automatic and automatized options. However, as you can see in the interior shot, the car has 3 pedals, even though the stick looks an awful lot like an automatic one. Maybe this is Peugeot’s revolutionary differential that will set it apart in this quietly revolutionary segment?

Marcelo de Vasconcellos
Marcelo de Vasconcellos

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  • CarsAroundWorld CarsAroundWorld on May 28, 2012

    The Peugeot 301 is a very nice looking car though, I tempted to go and buy one from where they are selling it and then bring it back to the US.

  • Hein Hein on Jan 04, 2013

    Just last week had the chance to drive a week in Marokko in a brand new 301 diesel. Simplicity but very good to handle,reasonably good seats, reasonably quiet, wonder if rust protection is top, because closing hatch and doors sounded a bit metallic. Nevertheless a car that was able to present itself as a very nice driving car, did 1600 kms without being fatigued, liked to drive on Atlas mountain roads with it. The diesel has a very good response to the gas pedal. Oh, almost forgot. Less than 5 liters/100km with an agile driving style!

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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