Hi all,

I’m from Australia and am 24.

After owning my GTI-6 for 4 years now I thought I’d give it a proper write up seeing as I would like to review cars as a hobby. I plan on doing a video shoot for it soon.

Yes… it’s very long but hopefully if there’s anyone here wanting one this will give you an idea of what they’re like:

I had been on the lookout for a 306 GTi-6 for about 2 years, pretty much just after I graduated from high school just before my 18th birthday, good examples were either snapped up too quick, or high mileage examples that were unfinished projects that needed ungodly amounts of work to get them roadworthy again. So, back in 2021 when I had just turned 20, when a one owner, 54,000km (34,000 mile) example that had been garaged its whole life came up for sale, I knew I had to have it.

Living with a GTi-6 day to day is quite easy. First noticeable thing is for a small car, there’s a surprising amount of room inside. I’m about 6 foot 3, but there’s still enough head room and enough room between my legs and the dashboard. And with such a large glass area, visibility all round the car is excellent, including reversing. But- it’s not without its quirks. Its seats aren’t the best, I find them a little too wide. Whilst the bolstering is good, you slide around a little before you actually press against and utilise the support of the bolstering. They also fall apart if you even look at them the wrong way. The door trim lands in your lap if you close the door too hard and the airbag light occasionally makes an appearance just to let you know it still works. The driving position is also a little too high to be perfect, and the relatively high placement of the throttle pedal makes it surprisingly difficult to heel-tow downshift. But as soon as you stick the boot into it on a twisty back road, all those little niggles seem to just disappear.

The engine is a two-litre, naturally aspirated four cylinder unit without any sort of variable valve timing. It makes 167hp and just shy of 200nm of torque. It’s known as the XU10J4RS. In my opinion, it’s one of Peugeot’s finest. It has plenty of low down torque, aided by very long intake manifold runners. Pulling out of a roundabout at 1,500rpm in third, while not proper practise, is quite easy. About 5,000rpm the horsepower begins to creep in with a very linear pull until the near-7,500rpm redline. Considering its lowish numbers by modern standards, it’s a very versatile engine and very honest. Best of all is its throttle response. It has a very snappy response, with a greater sense of urgency than some modern turbo engines I’ve driven. It sounds the part too, nice and gravely without sounding overly raspy like so many other four cylinders. The engine is also angled back towards the firewall on a rather significant slant.

The engine is mated to a gearbox bespoke to the GTi-6, an all-new six speed gearbox developed in-house by PeugeotSport. Peugeot had such a hard time shoehorning the gearbox into the small front end that they had to put a restrictor on the steering rack so the tyres don’t run against it on full lock. This impacted the turning circle… substantially. The gearbox itself is a fairly close ratio unit. It has quite a long first gear, but the other ratios are closely stacked together. For example, the engine is revving at about 2,800rpm at 100km/h / 62mph in sixth gear. The close ratio nature of the gearbox means you can keep the engine in its horsepower band when you’re driving spiritedly on roads where you’re frequently changing gears. Previously, I’ve owned a Citroen Xsara VTS which has the same engine as the GTi-6, but with a five speed gearbox instead. It was a nice gearbox, but changing gear a little too early meant falling out of the horsepower band. Not quite as much of an issue as with the 306’s six speed. This adds an extra layer of involvement, too. The shorter gearing means you drive with the anticipation of picking up an extra gear, which is a nice little addition especially when you’re powering out of corners. You can also waft car along very effortlessly. Things like taking off from the lights, or cruising in a higher gear (I can be in fourth gear at 45km/h. You can also skip gears on the way up the gate happily. And in sixth on the freeway, with the slightly higher cruising RPM, it keeps the engine high enough in the rev range that you don’t always need to downshift to pass slower traffic when you’re using the outside lane. The feel of the gear change is quite nice. Sure, the throw is a little long, but the action feels rather mechanical and fairly precise.

The steering. The steering is brilliant. The first noticeable attribute is that the steering is on the heavier side but very well weighted. It feels under-assisted, but then again, the car’s approximately 1,100kg weight (or lack thereof) means it doesn’t need to be over assisted. Around town is when you notice its weight the most, and U-turns need prior planning thanks to that restricter on the steering rack. However, when you’ve got a bit of speed up, the steering is of course a little lighter but still retains that perfect weighting.

The steering rack isn’t as fast as modern hot hatches with electric assistance; off-centre reactivity is accurate not overly responsive. But once you start leaning into more degrees of lock there is an adjustability and precision that just doesn’t exist in the newer equivalent hot hatches. The slightly slower response allows for more adjustment, because each degree of input through the wheel corresponds with a very predictable response from the front wheels, and each degree of lock steadily increases the lateral g-force and body pressure against the seat bolster. You have a much greater connection of grip levels linearly building through the front axle. It never feels nervous or darty because the response simply is not quick enough. The lower levels of hydraulic assistance also provide a great deal of feedback and road feel which makes the car feel very transparent and adds to the experience even more. I’ve found road feel and feedback to be another aspect lacking in electric assisted steering units. Combined with the great visibility and narrowness of the car, it is extremely easy to place on a country back-road. When you really give it a hard command of left or right lock, the turn in is exceptionally quick for a front wheel drive, courtesy to its lack of mass, short wheelbase and the engine being angled so far back towards the firewall.

The main party piece is the chassis. Not a surprise considering Peugeots once upon a time were so revered for their chassis engineering. The balance is sublime, and despite its relatively narrow 195 section tyres, the grip levels are very high. Following on from the very fast initial turn in, you as the driver feel very central to the pivot point of the car, as if it’s pivoting around you. An important feature to aid this is the passive rear wheel steering. The passive rear wheel steering relies on compliant bushes on the trailing arms which allow the rear wheels to steer when grip levels begin to build, stabilising the rear of the car mid corner. Just like the steering, the chassis is superbly adjustable with inputs from your right foot. Even though early motoring press remarked the GTi-6 as being very prone to lift off oversteer, I’ve found it absolutely doesn’t have to be. Keeping on the throttle through a corner keeps the chassis very planted and secure, but with a nice poise thanks to its rear wheel steering, which is actually quite noticeable. Coming off the throttle slightly will tuck the nose into the apex of the corner slightly, and the rear will ever so slightly step around, without fully breaking out into oversteer. It’s a lovely knife’s edge balance that is so Peugeot-esque. Come off the throttle abruptly, or trail brake, and the car will rotate without any hesitancy, quite quickly, but does so in quite a predictable manner. The steering allows you to feel confidently counter steering combined with getting back on the power allows you to get the car straight again without feeling like you’ll over correct and go the other way. Your throttle inputs can entirely dictate the position of the nose, and essentially steer the car. Once you get the hang of it, it’s addictive. And the small dimensions of the car allow you to execute cornering lines, because you have more room in the lane to utilise, unlike wider cars on narrow roads. You can actually aim for apexes in a GTi-6 on backroads, and you can get into a rhythm with the car and enable it to flow so beautifully.

Body roll is well controlled, but there is some there. But on tight corners you can feel the car digging into its tyre and utilising the available grip. Understeer is virtually non existent (aided by its slanted engine), unless you go looking for it and seriously try provoking it. The rear inside wheel can be felt lifting slightly on tight hairpin corners.

The other party piece is the suspension. Once again, another component Peugeot was renowned for being focussed on, and developed entirely in-house, rather than being outsourced to other manufacturers. The actual suspension on the GTi-6 has quite long travel, but is expertly judged and damped. The compression is progressive, and the rebound is surprisingly fast, meaning the car settles beautifully when it hits a decent sized bump. On really unforgiving road surfaces with consistent bumps, the suspension compresses and rebounds beautifully, and really utilises its long travel. The bump stops are hydraulic, so even at the limit of travel it’s not a violent jolt. This setup means that the beautiful Peugeot chassis balance can be enjoyed on less than perfect roads because the damping control keeps the chassis in check, without much interference through the chassis that distracts the nose from its chosen line, or introduces unwanted oversteer. This car is proof that as long as the rest of the car is sorted, long suspension travel is very effective in the real world, compared to the harshness of track setups. It also reminds us of the time before adaptive damping of good old suspension engineering in a one size fits all package.

The brakes are not overly assisted and require a bit of a firmer push, but stopping power is ample when you need it. With quite long pedal travel to match, the brakes can very easily be modulated and there’s plenty of feel.

Overall, the package the GTi-6 works very coherently. The progressive steering matches the progressive brakes. The chassis balance and the brilliant damping. Then the keen, torquey and rev happy engine. All combined in a package that weighs so little, without any unnecessary electronic computers to get in the way. It’s a combination of simplicity, with focused engineering. Modern hot hatches have gotten so more complicated, larger, heavier and firm that they aren’t as exploitable on the road as they once were. Overall the modern hot hatch experience is much more sanitised than it was once upon a time. This car really is the definition of “back to basics” as far as its driving experience goes.

The Peugeot 306 GTi-6 reminds us motoring enthusiasts exactly why we fell in love with driving in the first place.