How suited is the Peugeot 2008 Allure to the demands of town and country life with a family. We aim to find out.

What are we testing? The 2018 Peugeot 2008 Allure

Who’s running it? Isaac Bober

Why are we testing it? To find out why Aussies aren’t buying this well-kitted, good looking and capable little SUV.

What it needs to do? While we’ve got the 2008 we want to find out if it’s the real deal when it comes to the active family; needs to be able to handle the school run, trips into the Big Smoke and country adventures.

2018 Peugeot 2008 Specifications

Price From $33,869 driveaway Warranty five-years unlimited kilometres Safety five-star ANCAP Engine 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol Power/Torque 81kW/205Nm Transmission Six-speed automatic Drive front-wheel drive Dimensions 4159mm long, 2004mm wide with mirrors, 1556mm high, 2538mm wheelbase Boot Space 410 – 917L Spare 15-inch full-size Fuel Tank 50L Thirst 4.8L/100km

Been a bit quiet on the 2008 over the last couple of weeks. Sorry about that. We’ve rolled out our video reviews and they’ve taken up a little more time than expected. If you haven’t seen our videos, check them out here.

Okay, I thought I’d start at the back of the 2008. See, the family had a weekend away planned and I’d hoped to take the 2008 but there just wasn’t enough room in the boot. I could have dropped down one of the seats but when I tried that there wasn’t enough room for my daughter’s booster seat and my son to sit next to her.

For a couple, the boot is more than big enough and you can see with the suitcase in the boot there’s enough room for one or two more bags. If I stood the suitcase up on its side you’d get another one of the same size alongside it. Doing that, though, would cause the cargo cover which doesn’t rise with the tailgate to sit up in the air and obscure rear vision through the back window.

It’s odd there are no strings to attach the cargo cover to the tailgate so that it rises when you open the back of the car. Instead, there’s a little flip-up section. Hmmm. You can remove the whole thing but where you’d put it after that is beyond me. Another odd one is the small strong loop that you use to raise the boot floor. It’s offset and that makes it a little awkward to use if I’m being overly picky. Oh, and closing the tailgate is a pain…there’s a grab handle on the inside which is ergonomically awkward – means you’ve got to pull the thing down by holding the outside of the tailgate. Needs some work.

It’s not all bad, though, there are a couple of small net pouches and elastic storage straps for keeping rags and bottles in place. There are also some storage hooks around the boot floor.

You can fold down the back seats (60:40 split) via levers on the seat back shoulders. The back seats fold down almost flat and you’ll be able to see for yourself how Peugeot’s achieved this… as the seatback begins to fold forwards the seat base slides forwards an inch or so. Clever. It liberates a lot more space as you can see from the photo with the suitcase.

In all, the luggage space is good for a compact SUV but for a family it’s best confined to weekends away where you won’t need too much gear.