As you may have guessed from the other automotive pages on this website, I've always been one for older and somewhat odd cars - You'd have guessed correctly if you had come to this conclusion.  So it may come as a bit of a surprise if you were to spot me driving down the road in something barely a year old.

Courtesy of work eating up the vast majority of my time nowadays, and really just needing something I could rely on, I needed to look for something a bit newer (and economical) as my daily runabout.  Nobody was able to offer me a workable finance solution on a used car though - so I ended up going for a new one.  Not quite my original plan...but life's good at making it necessary to think on your feet, isn't it...

At work, we have a few Citroen C1's as pool cars, and while they're simple little things I've found them quite pleasant to drive.  Once I'd done some further digging, not least discovering that in three years across three cars that we'd not had a single failure among them...I decided that it was a viable option. 

The Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo, and Peugeot 107 are of course fundamentally the same car.  While the bodywork varies somewhat cosmetically from one to the other, they all share the same platform...and well, aside from some body panels everything else!  The Peugeot version I preferred the styling of - and they had the best finance deal out of the three as well, not to mention the most conveniently placed dealership for me to get to for servicing (which has now closed down...great!).

I'd never had the opportunity to actually configure a car for myself before, picking out what options I wanted, and picking the colour...The colour.  This DID cause a certain amount of deliberation.  I knew that the car looked good in bright red, had very fond memories of my second Austin Metro which had been bright yellow, and there was also an option of a really nice looking metallic black.  In the end, I went with black - though every other day when I realise it needs washing again, I do question the wisdom of this decision to some extent!

Couple of months down the line, and I found myself picking up a brand new car for the first time...Not something I ever really expected to be doing!  I'd also gone to town somewhat with the cosmetic options which were available with the car - however as this was only a month or so after the second generation 107 was launched (it came out in February 2009 - and I ordered the car that month, picking it up in April), these weren't ready for then I picked the car up.  Much to the relief of the dealer however, I'm a patient person, and really didn't mind in the slightest waiting a bit.  So I drove home with the car you see below.











It very much had that new car shine, and that new car smell (which it still has a year on actually!).  I've never driven so carefully before in my life that I can think of!  First couple of months at least I must have appeared to every other road user as a complete menace because of my caution verging on paranoia!

Never driven a car with so few miles on before...Had only 12 miles on when I picked it up.

What's hard to see in the images above is that the car isn't actually a flat black colour, rather is a metallic colour, in which especially on a bright sunny day (well...the odd couple of those a year we get in Scotland!) shows up flecks of all manor of reds, blues and purples...I've tried to capture this on the camera, and you can see it - but the full effect really doesn't come across.  It's really quite pretty actually I think.





Now, the 107 (and its Citroen and Toyota brothers) isn't without its quirks.  Most obvious are a couple of oddities inside; not least the revcounter, which sprouts out of the top of the instrument housing like some aliens third eye, and a big chunk of white plastic around the heater controls - which by day doesn't look all that odd, but all glows orange at night.  I don't have a detail of the revcounter yet, or this glowing at night, but these will follow.



I initially had some concerns that this might prove very distracting at night, but it's actually dim enough that it's not a problem - not to mention the fact that the headlights are actually very good.  Even for a larger car, never mind for something so small.

A month down the line, the car went in for its checkup, and got the cosmetic items I'd ordered from the dealer fitted.  While I'd not generally have gone for anything as boy-racerish as this, it was within my budget, and as this was my first car...darnit, I was going to have a bit of fun with it!

The additional kit consisted of a chrome radiator grill, a small bootlid spoiler, and a set of (as it turned out very effective - once I'd adjusted them so they weren't pointing skywards anyway - nice one dealer!) twin headlights.  Think it does make the car look really quite fun and a bit more distinctive, especially the headlights which I've yet to see another 107 with in person.

This and the resulting digging through my images folder has led me to the conclusion that I don't actually have many decent photos of the car since it had its facelift...I should correct this at some point!

I'll be getting back to this page once that's done, probably formatting it in a more review-like manner, and adding a lot more detailed photos where needed.  For now though, hope this keeps you interested!


Manufacturer: Peugeot.
Model: 107 Verve 1.0 3-door.
Engine: 998cc 3-cylinder inline petrol.
Gearbox: 5-speed manual.
Power output: 68bhp.
0-60mph: 13 seconds approx (manufacturers claim).
MPG: 50 (average).
Colour: (in case you want yours that colour!) Raven Black metallic.

Updates:

25th January 2021: Minor page formatting changes to improve mobile usability.

28th April 2023: Revised Statcounter code to allow for HTTPS operation.