The glorious Peugeot 205 GTI is back. It’s better than ever. And, umm, quite a bit more expensive…
“We’re not trying to radically change what the car was like originally because that’s what people love,” enthuses Chris Tolman. “It’s like seeing your favourite band. You want it to play the old songs you love as they were, not with new lyrics or a big drum solo - just live and turned up to 11”.
Turned up to 11 is an apt way of describing what Tolman, founder of the Rugby, UK-based Tolman Motorsports, has done to a Peugeot 205 GTI - a complete ‘restomod’ rebuild of 25 of them, in fact - uprated to be faster, more powerful and shinier but otherwise still familiar. And all for the tune of £125,000. Despite that terrifying sum, they’re selling fast too.
But a Peugeot 205 GTI? Of course, petrol-heads recognise that as being the king of the hot hatches, that strange spin-off the car industry created in the 80s and early 90s - taking its pioneering of a compact, affordable three-door family car and putting it on steroids for boy racers.
The VW Golf GTI may have been first, in 1975, with the likes of the Ford Focus RS and Renault 5 GT Turbo also notable. But, Tolman says, the Peugeot 205 GTI - which this year marks its 40th anniversary - was the best. It was better engineered, drove better and looked better, thanks to styling by the Italian design company Pininfarina, responsible for many a Ferrari.
It was also much loved, he says - and everyone who has splashed out for Tolman Edition 205 had one the first time around - because it was the last of a breed.
“I think a lot of people cherish cars from that era - men who were likely in their 20s then and in their 50s now - because the safety regulations that came in soon after meant the car industry was restricted in what it could do, and cars all started to look the same,” Tolman explains. “The cars of the early 90s had all the bells and whistles you could want but were still pretty”.
It’s why clients are now lining up for him to give similar treatment to, among other cars, a BMW E30, Mercedes 190 and Ford Escort XR3. All the same, Tolman is first to concede that £125,000 is a lot of money - but, he says, that’s what the labour, materials and tooling cost these days to turn a mash-up of various donor cars into a mini motoring masterpiece. Besides, he says, you get to a certain age and nostalgia becomes a powerful motivator in the things we buy.
“That’s why we wanted people to be able to jump into a Tolman Edition and it still drive as they remember it,” he says. “Of course, we have improved on the original car but people likely remember the Peugeot 205 GTI as being better than it actually was. It was great. But we have to allow for rose-tinted glasses”.