Peugeot HR1 concept

The response to Peugeot’s B-Segment SUV concept among the designers we spoke to was generally positive. It projects a pleasingly voluminous, sophisticated air, safely laying to rest the design histrionics of the Welter era and building on the new design identity established by the SR1 at the Geneva Show.

We particularly liked the development of the theme that sees ingot-like components puncturing surfaces to reappear elsewhere – here, most intriguingly as the headlamps push down behind the hood surface into the grille aperture. Theme as dogma, however, causes the detail resolution to come undone as components like roof-rails tend to be over-designed.

The recursive lines linking the tail lamp to the shoulder and door surfaces is well resolved, more so than on the SR1, but – again – the decision to carry the theme down to a micro level, particularly around the headlamp recesses, results in some oddly pinched, remarkably fussy surfaces.

As an aside, we must admit that Peugeot’s decision to put a blow of black paint over the lower half of the car is a cheap trick for disguising the considerable heft of the bodyside under controlled lighting. It fades to silver above and we wonder, should the car make it to the road, whether a more production-feasible approach would be quite so effective?

Billed as a 2+2, the way that the rear seats slide forward to ‘hug’ those in the front – increasing load space – is an elegantly resolved solution, while the contrast between black and burgundy leathers helps to define a pleasingly spare, architectural space, punctuated by the gloss black of the gesture-controlled HMI systems.

Despite Peugeot’s insistence that the car is a unique combination of city car, coupe and SUV, it’s hard not to see it as slightly panicked response to the runaway success of the minute, the Nissan Juke. That’s not to suggest that the car isn’t without merit, but there are a number of details that feel rushed and, consequently, let it down.