Victory, but is it for Peugeot?

WHICH is the fastest way of getting between Settle and Carlisle: Britain’s most famous railway, or a car?

That’s the question I posed earlier this month on Life On Cars, and why I found myself in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales yesterday, with a plush Peugeot cabriolet for company. I was impressed by its fiendish clever entertainment system and the latest in a long line of the company’s folding metal roofs but more importantly, its 150bhp means it’s a quick car.

Quick enough to win, it seems.

Just to clear things up; both the Leeds to Carlisle train and the Peugeot 207 CC GT THP 150 left Settle station at exactly quarter-to-four, and there was no cheating, speeding or foul play involved. Just two very different routes, the decision to keep the Pug’s roof up, and an outcome which wasn’t nearly as close as I was expecting.

I was expecting girlfriend and snapper Conny Kaufmann to be waiting for me at the main entrance of Carlisle station, our finishing point some 72 miles to the North, when I’d finished my blast across the A65 and up the M6, but she was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t believe it, but when I asked the station staff the train was still fifteen minutes away!

It gave me plenty of time to pull up, stroll to the platform and look smug as the same train I’d seen on the platform at Settle chugged into Carlisle, but what impressed me far more than winning was the car itself. A slight blunder on Peugeot’s booking form meant I was expecting a hot hatch rather than a cabriolet, but from the way it drove it seems the French firm may have forgotten too. Firm and sporty with precise handling, with the roof up I could have sworn I was at the helm of a mild-mannered GTi.

So there you go; a car is quicker between Settle and Carlisle than the Settle to Carlisle Railway. And what a car to prove the point.

Read the full feature in the summer edition of GR8 Life magazine and check out Life On Cars later this week for more driving impressions of the Peugeot 207 CC