Peugeot 208 XY Concept - a 208 for the sybarite

Purple Peugeot 208 XY Concept with 'Pulsion' paint

Peugeot 208 XY Concept - Geneva bound

The Peugeot 208 XY Concept – heading for a debut at the Geneva Motor Show – is Peugeot’s luxury take on the new 208.

We’ve already had the concept for the new Peugeot 208 GTi as the performance extreme of the new 208 range, and arriving onside the 208 GTi on Peugeot’s Geneva stand will be the luxury extreme of the 208 – the Peugeot 208 XY Concept.

The 208 XY looks like the second attempt by Peugeot (along with the GTi) to emulate the success Citroen has had with the C3 with the DS iconic badge, where style and performance combine with a lifestyle statement. Whether Peugeot can pull that off without resorting to badge engineering remains to be seen, but the 208 XY is definitely the luxury 208 to be, whatever moniker it eventually gets.

Top of the visual statements on the 208 XY is what Peugeot call ‘Pulsion’ paintwork, which appears to change colour depending on the distance and angle from which you view, a trick that takes 16 coats of paint and lacquer to accomplish.

Other visual adornments include 18″ alloys under wheel arch extensions, panoramic glass roof and a small profusion of chrome trim. Inside the 208 XY benefits from an abundance of crimson stitched leather on almost every surface apart from the glass roof, and even that gets edged in black leather. The seats are pearly grey quilted leather, there’s a flat-bottomed leather steering wheel, ambient lighting and custom mats.

Powered by the 115bhp 1.6-litre e-HDi engine, and with a 6-speed manual ‘box, the 208 XY is, according to Peugeot, ‘Urban Chic’.

They could be right.