PEUGEOT 106 RALLYE
THE VIEW THROUGH THE LITTLE PEUGEOT’S DEEP windscreen is almost entirely fields – expansive, gently rolling hills of sun-bleached crops as far as the eye can see, baked almost to the colour of Weissbier under an unrelenting sun. Toasty air blasts through the wound-down side windows and small, open sunroof, coquettishly positioned upwards and rearwards in the slipstream following a few revolutions of the frail plastic handle behind the rear-view mirror. It’s no match for air conditioning, but it does the job; stationary, though, the 40-degree heat is enough to have my forearms literally wringing wet with sweat in mere seconds.
If I didn’t know better I’d swear we were somewhere past Reims, sailing along a French N-road, driving one of Peugeot Sport’s absolute belters on its home soil, but I do – a few miles ahead lies Wantage, Oxfordshire, roasting in record temperatures. At least three people today have already said ‘You’ll cook today in that without air con!’, but you know what? I couldn’t care less. It’s been 26 years since I last drove a Series 1 106 Rallye, the first sporting car I ever owned, and it feels like coming home. Getting a sweat on isn’t going to spoil that.
I can’t help but feel a bit Icon. It was similarly hot the first time I ever saw one in the metal, queuing for the ferry at Portoferraio docks on the Isle of Elba. It was the summer of 1995, and the heat haze rose off the melting asphalt, merging with the pungent whiff of fish and heavy ship oil. It was too hot to move; too hot to breathe. There, amongst a long line of scruffy Fiats and comically decrepit Renaults, was a brand new, gleaming black, 106 Rallye, its cool young owner reclining in the driver’s seat, his attractive female companion looking bored alongside. It had those motorsport stripes, it had white steel wheels, and most importantly to a nerdy, rally-obsessed young bloke like me, it had an FIA homologation plaque under the bonnet that denoted the small production run of this vibrant little car was for the ultimate purpose: it was a homologation special. I knew there and then I had to have one, and, not too long afterwards, I did.