Donna’s 206 needs no introduction to the regulars of EC, so put simply, its not getting one. Instead all I’ll say is hot hatches are great. Period.

In days of very old, like two number plate formats ago, you had to be quite well off to drive fast. In fact, you had to be quite well off to drive at all! There was a simple reason for this. If you were middle class you had something with a lethargic lawn mower sized engine to trundle you, the wife and your kids along to the seaside for the day, something like say an Austin A35. A working man was more likely to use a bus, tram or bike to get around than a car as they were just too expensive. You had to be rich, very rich, to have something like the icon that is the E-type jag.
It was a simple class barrier situation. The upper class drove fast, middle class slow, working class not at all.

By the very late 70’s times had a changed. Cars like the mini and the beetle had been putting people on the road for over a decade and even the hatchback had been rolled out. VW had one, their radical new model, the Golf. A sensible, usable, affordable car for everyone. VW also had some very enthusiastic engineers who liked to hang back at work and tinker. The result of their tinkering on the Golf impressed the management of the company so much, it has influenced what you drive today. The engineers own little project became the first ever mass produced Hot Hatch, complete with GTi badge on its arse.

Ford and Peugeot were hot on VW’s heels when they saw how demand was outstripping supply. Performance driving was coming to the masses for the very first time. Ford rolled out the XR3, Peugeot the 205 GTi and rapidly everyone else had a model aimed for the market too, with varying levels of success. The one upmanship had started.

Over the years that have passed, the hot hatch manufacturers have been producing some great cars, ones that have all but killed off the “sports” car of yesteryear and ones that have went down in motoring folklore. There have however been a few glitches, even from the best of them. Luckily for Donna, her 206 GTi is perceived to be the worst GTi Peugeot ever made.

I say luckily as at the time Donna decided to go shopping for a hot hatch, Peugeot had been struggling with these cars. The GTi badge was on the back, but the 2ltr engine was producing a massive 34bhp less than its market place rival of the time, the Clio Sport 172. Peugeot’s reply, the GTi180 edition.

Now Donna is a girl that knows money. I say girl to butter her up really as between you and me she’s been driving since late 1995, you can do the maths yourself with that one! Anyways, she knows money as she should, since she gets paid to look after other peoples on a 9 to 5 basis in the world of stocks and shares. She also knows the old cash type too as like many in the modded car scene, it a second job that helps fund the running of her car.
Knowing money and knowing cars means she knew exactly what was happening with the prices of used non 180’s. Once their value plummeted more than a lead balloon chucked from the top of the Eiffel tower, she nipped up to the local pug dealer on April fools day of all days and came away having played the salesman like a fool a treat. Let the fun begin.

While it may be lethargic by 2007 spec hot hatches the car still has 138bhp as standard and while the Pipercross induction kit was fitted for sound rather than performance, who knows, maybe its squeezed things to the 140 mark. As the saying goes though, fun is not a straight line and while you might have a car with more power sat outside your house right now, how can it cope on a twisty bit of tarmac against a French hot hatch chassis?
What about one on coilovers which after much messing about, some experimenting and a couple of disasters, have been set exactly to suit a driver who punts the car about on a daily basis. Would you fancy your chances against a car so planted on the road that even when it has all 4 wheels a good six inches off the ground after a bump in the road, its comes down plain, true and still overtaking perfectly the car its on the outside off? Perhaps not.
That may sound like a tale that’s been spun by Dee about her driving banter but she wasn’t behind the wheel at the time. Someone with a name like mine was.

Getting proper use from the car is important but visually there have been a few subtle changes to personalise the car as well. Some changes have came and gone where as some have remained. A Carbon bonnet found its way on to the car for a while but wasn’t a brilliant fit and so was sold on after much deliberating. Angel eye headlights were fitted too but by the time the 3rd set melted their own internal ring, the idea had lost its appeal and they were replaced with a set of black mask ones instead.

Disaster has never been far away and this was certainly true of the earlier mentioned coilovers. Picture the scene and imagine how sick would you be. You drive to French Car Show at Bruntingthorpe, somewhere between four and a half and 7 hours away, depending on how you fast you drive and how much pissing about you do en route. You spend a weekend on a basic camp site being deprived of sleep, drinking in to the nights and on the final day, walking around a car show all day. After show, and of course no where near the last time you had a drink, you jump in your car, knackered, and head for home. You get to Hillend, ten minutes from home and bang, the front suspension snaps adding a big repair bill & another hour and a half before you see home. Sickner.

Thankfully that’s been about as low as it gets with the car - boom boom! Sorry! Its now Avo Coilovers that do their thing under the pug’s arches without any messing about. The previous brand that let Donna down so spectacularly will remain undisclosed for both legal reasons and that the fact I didn’t pick up the brand name in between the obscenities used to describe them.

Its not been all bad on the suspension front, the Ecosse strut brace hasn’t caused any problems! Likewise the SP arches were more of a success story and remain on the car, though they had to be painted before they could go on, blue arches on a green car don’t really go! The LED back lights have worked throughout too and the matching clear rear fog lamp nestling in the rear back bumper.
Subtlety really has been the way with the pug, while the OE wheels remain for example, they have been painted dark grey, courtesy of Ross Brown. The fuel filler cap is alloy rather than OE and a Pioneer DVD player graces the dashboard too. No mental kits, no wild paints, just enough changes to make the car her own, for now.

One of the questions that I’ve asked every feature car owner is “Are you planning to keep it”? This is the first time though that I’ve been half way through writing the answer by the time the question has been asked. I know now you see, as you will by the time this goes up on the site, that Donna has finally chosen to part company with the little puglet after 3 years and many road, track and quarter mile, miles. The latter a quarter mile at a time of course.

By the time you read this Dee will be running about in a brand new Clio Sport 197 which will no doubt be popping up at various cruises and show days including the legendary French Car Show. With that kind of power it may well challenge the theory that fun is not in a straight line but it can only support my earlier statement, Hot Hatches are great.