Peugeot, many years ago, pulled off one of the most impressive feats of corporate reinvention the motor industry has yet seen.
Until the 1970's, along with half a dozen other semi-premium car-makers, it occupied a small and inhospitable piece of market territory between the mighty mass-market players such as Ford on one side and prestige brands such as Mercedes on the other.
Audi quickly twigged that there wasn't much of a future in this patch of automotive no-man's land and embarked on the decades-long move up-market that today allows it to look Mercedes and BMW in the eye. Alfa, Lancia, Saab and Volvo stayed where they were but only Volvo really made a decent job of it.
Peugeot's response was different. It decided to enter the mainstream, adding smaller cars such as the 104 to its conservative sedans but, and this was the really clever bit, as it scaled up, its cars retained their distinctive style and driving qualities, making the 205, 305 and 405 some of the most desirable mass-market cars of the time.
And then, suddenly, Peugeot, previously so nimble in responding to changing conditions, somehow lost it. By "it" I mean that hard-to-define dash that set a Peugeot apart from other big-selling cars - a subjective eagerness, a certain sweetness in the operation of the major controls, and, above all, good looks.
I suspect the precise turning point came when the pert and pretty 306 was replaced by the sober-sided 307 in 2001.
Anyway, the significance of the 5008, due in South Africa in the third quarter of 2010, is that it provides the best evidence so far that Peugeot has recovered its former flair.
It's a sister to the 3008 people carrier but gets a larger body that can accommodate seven, and has the sort of handsome design in which Peugeot used to specialise.
Our test car had the company's excellent two-litre turbodiesel, which is easily strong enough to allow this quite large car to keep up with freeway traffic.
The spacious interior feels very well put together - a big area of improvement over previous Peugeots - and our top of the range model even had a neat head-up display that projected speed and other data directly into the driver's field of view, a feature usually found only on much more expensive cars.
In all, the 5008 is a great effort - and there's more to come. Peugeot's dramatic new RCZ coupé looks like being just the first of a series of good-looking Peugeots if the design studies displayed by the company at recent motor shows are anything to go by. - The Independent, London
Peugeot 5008 Exclusive HDi 110
Price:
£23 095 (264 500)
Top speed:
200km/h, 0-100 in 10.0sec.
Fuel consumption:
5.8 litres/100km.