Peugeot Sport unveils the 208 T16 with which nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb will take on this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, US.
It’s not often you hear crankandpiston getting misty eyed and extolling the all-round virtues of a Peugeot 208: “ooh, 68hp, do go on…” This 208 T16, however, is something else entirely. Not only is it the brute with which Peugeot Sport will attempt to emulate its victories on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in 1988 and 1989, it is also the race-spec beast with which World Rally Championship legend Sébastien Loeb will make his debut on the event.
Aside from explaining that there is ‘plenty of freedom on the technical front’, Peugeot has released very few details on the 208 T16 (news of which crankandpiston first brought you a few weeks ago). The T16 will though compete in the Unlimited category, meaning the nine-time WRC Champion stands a fair shout at going for the record run time. An all-asphalt surface for the first time on Pikes Peak could well play in Loeb’s favour too, given the Frenchman’s dominance since 2002 on the predominantly tarmac Rallye Deutscheland: he’s lost only once (in 2011) in ten attempts, and even than came home second.
Loeb and Peugeot’s assault on Pikes Peak’s 156 corners (which end at an altitude of 4301m, a rise of 1500m in just 20 km) begins on June 30.
– MORE EPIC SHOTS OF THE PEUGEOT 208 T16 HERE – Shots courtesy of Peugeot
