It’s a five-hour journey from Malzéville to Calais That’s if you take the fastest and most direct route which you won’t if you’re returning home in a Peugeot 205 Rallye you’ll venture three hours in the opposite direction to the Swiss border at Basel before plotting a course south via Grenoble to enjoy Route Napoléon the 205 Rallye is the antithesis of today’s bloated hot hatches The 205 Rallye coming up for sale on Car & Classic isn’t perfect There are battle scars on the white paintwork the rear window is paying homage to Tina Turner and there are signs that a small dog has enjoyed the morning blast to the boulangerie Everything points to 34 years and 178,383km (111,000 miles) of enthusiastic use It also means that you won’t be afraid to press it into active service which isn’t necessarily the case if you buy a five- or even six-figure performance car with just delivery miles on the clock and the original ‘hairs’ on the factory-fitted tyres A good hot hatch is for driving and the 205 Rallye is a very good hot hatch Not to be confused with the UK’s 1.4-litre version the European Rallye is a bona fide homologation special built for both Group N and Group A rallying Peugeot took the 1.1-litre TU engine from the 205 XR added a pair of Webers and made other modifications to deliver 103bhp at 6300rpm and you’ve got the makings of a proper upstart in the lightweight hot hatch category it tipped the scales at just 793kg – around 100kg less than a 1.6 GTi the 0-60 time is almost irrelevant; it’s all about exploring the upper reaches of the rev counter and keeping the engine on song As Andrew Frankel observed: “Because it ultimately wasn’t that fast it was one of those cars where you rarely had to slow down for anything You’d approach corners at impossible speeds hands and right foot working in seamless harmony to maintain the line.” The ‘proper’ 205 Rallye is left-hand drive only which won’t be a problem until you arrive in Dover Set the phone-nav to ‘avoid motorways’ and take the long way home Our Classics: 1998 Peugeot 106 Rallye S2 309-mile Peugeot 306 Rallye could be yours – for £46,000 French auction is a treat for Peugeot and Citroën enthusiasts Save my name and email in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value"