UFO Info Week-End

This I discover when I turn around the loop at the far end of the test course and jam my right hand between

This I discover when I turn around the loop at the far end of the test course and jam my right hand between the steering wheel and that central spine. You might expect a three-wheeler with strong motorcycling overtones to have almost handlebar-quick steering, but no. How the 207 behaves is something we won’t discover until the launch in March.One system the 20Cup does have from the road car, though, is the steering. Does this augur well for the forthcoming 207’s road manners? It would be good to think so, but the connection is tenuous at best because the 20Cup has its own racecar-like wishbone front suspension rather than the 207’s struts. The three-wheeled mutant hurtles forwards and, to my surprise, the power finds its way on to the wet track with little wheelspin or the tugging at the steering often found in a powerful front-wheel drive car.

The engine is pulling with gusto and no sign of any of the response delay you sometimes get with a turbocharger. Into third gear now and let’s see what happens when I floor the accelerator.Quite a lot. Down goes the pedal, in goes first gear with a ker-chunk, a good dose of engine revs to avoid stalling and off we roar. It’s a type normally used in a racing car; Peugeot 206 RCC used this one in a French one-make racing series.So there’s a conventional pedal for the fierce racing-clutch, needed for moving off and advisable for gearshifts on the move to smooth the bangs and clunks of engaging dog-teeth (there’s no synchromesh in a racing gearbox).

It’s a sequential-shift transmission, but harder-edged than something like an Alfa Selespeed or Citro?Sensodrive. Right now it’s a little off-kilter, but this is a concept car and it’s surprising that so much of it works at all But Peugeot is good at that. Its concepts usually do work, while those of some other carmakers are purely for show.The display currently shows lateral and longitudinal g-force, speed and the gear I’ve selected, although there are other parameters in its repertoire. The gears are selected by button, upchange to the right of the display, downchange to the left. The steering wheel is more rectangular than round, with a central display which is supposed to stay level even when the wheel is turned. It’s a bit of a battle to slot myself in there are no doors and I’m having to lower myself into the duck-tape-upholstered, expanded polystyrene seat as I lean on the central shoulder-level spine that divides driver from passenger.Now I’m installed, the steering wheel is plugged back into position and I can discover which button does what. Helmet on, climb on to the cocoon-like carbon-fibre monococque that is the main reason for the 20Cup’s sub-500kg weight and consequent considerable pace.

Which wasn’t much if you were descending a wet, bumpy hill, as I once discovered for myself. Why does it always rain when I drive mad three-wheelers with no protection from the elements?Now it’s my turn to drive. Which, actually, is where it came from.Are we witnessing a crazily-morphed new take on the ancient Morgan three-wheeler? Not quite; the 20Cup has front wheel drive, whereas the Morgan was pushed along by its single rear wheel which also did most of the braking. And it’s raining, causing rooster-tail fountains of spray as the 20Cup traverses the Mortefontaine test track near Paris – a lot of spray, especially as the rear wheel a) has no mudguard and b) is wide enough to belong to a Le Mans racing car. It’s in standard production form, I am told, and this will be the first chance to try it out.The 20Cup is, you’ll notice, an open sports car which doesn’t even have a meaningful windscreen. The 20Cup is the first to emerge from the new one shared with Citro?at V?zy.This new direct-injection turbo engine is significant in itself as an all-new collaborative venture between Peugeot and BMW, for use in the next-generation Mini.