If ever a car had been designed to look good with no roof, it's the Peugeot 206 CC. I don't just mean that it's a smart-looking device in topless form, though this is undoubtedly the case. I also mean that in coupé mode . . . the CC in the title stands for Coupé-Convertible, which in more prosaic terms means roof-up-roof-down . . . but then 206 RURO wouldn't look as good . . . where was I? Oh, yes - as a coupé it just doesn't work at all. Dreadful shape. Simply awful."Nice car!" an onlooker called out enthusiastically as I got back in after a meal in the big city. And that was when the roof was up. Oh well. What do I know?The transition from coupé to convertible is, assuming you have undone the relevant catches and ensured that there is nothing higher than a certain level in the boot, simple. You just press a button and it all happens in around twenty seconds. This can become slightly tedious, because you have to keep pressing the button all the way through the process. If you let go, everything stops, but I'm sure there are sound safety reasons for this and will now shut up about it.Personally I'm not a huge fan of open-topped motoring, but since by an amazing stroke of luck I actually had the 206 CC during a period of good weather I took the opportunity to be fried and wind-beaten on a couple of occasions. Not a bad experience at all - the feel-good quotient was very high, and airflow within the cockpit was at quite acceptable levels.A certain amount of creaking and squeaking is inevitable when you remove one of the major structural elements from a car, but the 206 is quite reasonable in this respect. What intrigued me was the fact that with the roof in place there was quite a lot less of it. As with the Mercedes-Benz SLK (with which the 206 always seems to be compared despite the fact that the two cars are aimed at entirely different markets), the roof is solid. I strongly suspect that when it's in place it puts back quite a lot of the original bodyshell stiffness.One strange aspect of the appearance is that the car looks as though it is standing on tiptoe. This isn't just by comparison with open-topped sports cars - there really is a big gap between the tops of the tyres and the wheelarches. I suspect this is deliberate, as the high stance allows the back end to move around, following the front into a corner and reducing the possibility of understeer.The result is perky handling at moderate speeds. Pushed harder, the back end becomes slightly wayward, and you have to watch what you're doing, but I imagine most people who want a car like this are going for the looks rather than the performance. Peugeot introduced it with a two-litre engine, as in the test car, but the lower-powered 1.6 is now available too.If I lived in the south of France, I reckon the 206 CC would be the ideal car for buzzing around in, though I don't think I would want to drive one to the south of France. The cramped footwell makes long trips uncomfortable to those of us with large feet, though this is a generic 206 problem and not specific to this car.For the UK, I'm not so sure. Somehow it doesn't seem to make so much sense in this climate - but if everyone thought that way there would be no market for convertibles in this country. Clearly there is, and for those who like that sort of thing the 206 CC has to be worth a look.Second opinion: I liked this car a lot more than I was expecting. The rear styling is - bearing in mind what's in there - unavoidably dumpy, but the overall appeal is pretty strong. Minimal luggage space, of course, and the rear seats are hilarious in their almost non-existence. Roof-down, the CC would indeed be just the job for the south of France; on one sunny afternoon trip, I transferred myself mentally to somewhere around St Paul de Vence. That 206 footwell also gets Flywheel incoherent with . . . something or other, but those of us who aren't built like coal-heavers don't have the same problem. About the handling: I did one mid-evening drive on a winding, undulating, narrow and quiet B-class route through the hills, and found the CC scampered along like a thoroughbred. And it's quick off the line. Just look at that sub-nine seconds 0-62mph time. Ross Finlay. Engine 1997cc, 4 cylinders Power 138bhp Fuel/CO2 35.3mpg / 191g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.9 seconds Top speed 126mph Price £15,995 Details correct at publication date
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