Peugeot relaunches its GTi sports brand with an electric 208 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans

The GTi label is making a comeback at Peugeot. The lion brand unveiled a prototype of the supercharged e-208 at its fan zone at the 24 Hours of Le Mans circuit this Friday, June 13, the day before the start of this legendary race.

"A prototype very close to the final version, which will be unveiled very soon," assured us Matthias Hossan, design director at Peugeot.

The design pays homage to the 205 GTi, launched in 1984, with numerous red details and the body color of the new model presented at Le Mans. Just before the presentation, images of the iconic "James Bond vs. the Bomber" advertisement were shown on the screens and the 208 was covered in a parachute fabric.

"We wanted to preserve the very essence of a Peugeot GTi," explains Matthias Hossann. "We didn't want to be in an outrageous gesture or over-expressive of sportiness and that's what you can see on the exterior: you can see that it's a GTi by the stance, the fact that the vehicle is lowered, widened too, which we magnify with these 18-inch rims."

Performance-wise: Peugeot announces 280 horsepower and 345Nm of torque for the electric motor, with a top speed of 180km/h and 0 to 100km/h in 5.7 seconds.

A figure of 5.7 which is also found in the power-to-weight ratio, at 5.7 kg per horsepower, underlined Jean-Marc Finot, general director of Stellantis Motorsport.

This future 208 GTi will also be equipped with a limited slip differential integrated into the reduction gear, to optimize cornering behavior, with greater agility, efficiency and stability.

Sports equipment and a 280 horsepower electric motor that are already found within the Stellantis group in the Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce launched last year.

The 208 GTi will also use the same 54 kWh gross capacity battery as its Italian cousin, with an expected range of around 350 kilometers WLTP.

A highly anticipated return: the first-generation 208 had its GTi version until 2018 and the label was extinguished in 2020 with the cessation of production of the 308 GTi.

A label which is thus moving to electric, after the failure of the PSE (Peugeot Sport Engineered) version which was offered on the 508 plug-in hybrid between 2020 and 2024, but which was ultimately not released on other models.

In the current context, releasing a small thermal sports car today is presented as an impossible mission by Peugeot.

"We must be aware that the point is not just to develop an extraordinary car, but also to make it accessible to people, and we know that, particularly in France, with the penalty and the taxes as they are defined, the only solution to make a sports car accessible to a wide public is for it to be electric," analyses Alain Favey, CEO of Peugeot.

The man who took office at the beginning of the year remains optimistic about the ability to attract fans of sporty driving with such a high-performance electric engine.

"I challenge any of the greatest aficionados of the past to get into this car and tell me it doesn't live up to their expectations," says Alain Favey.

One big unknown, however: the price. The answer will likely be a little later this year, with the opening of orders and the first deliveries expected in 2026.

Its future competitor, the Alpine A290, currently starts at 38,700 euros for its 180 hp version and from 41,700 euros for the 220 hp version.