We were one day into a three-day drive around the Eastern regions of France in that most worldly of French cars, the new Peugeot 308.
The 308 is very French, in the sense that it is extremely stylish, slightly avant-garde in some areas and possesses a certain Euro badge-cred that elevates it to something other than mere transport.
Peugeot 308 station wagon set among the luxury yachts on the Riviera (above) and the Peugeot 308 hatch (below).
Yet it has always been Peugeot's mainstream car, and with the latest incarnation has very much become Peugeot's Golf, both in the sense that its maker sees the VW as its main competitor and that it looks quite a bit like it from some angles.
So it is, in a sense, a stylish, attractive Euro car that is at home on the sparkling shores of Saint-Tropez, yet will quite easily do the trick for a dairy farmer from the Naki when the missus wants something that isn't a manure-covered ute to go to town in.
The trek up and down France's eastern side in a range of 308s was designed to fill in the space between the Spanish launch of the 508 and the Paris motor show for the Antipodean motoring press.
Some of the roads we drove on (once off the main highways) could easily be classified as "horrifying" and plainly demonstrated why
The Peugeot 308 hatch (below and above) boasts an unbeatable union of eager engine and six-speed auto transmission.
The 308 is a stylish, attractive Euro car that is at home on the sparkling shores of Saint-Tropez, yet will quite easily do the trick for a dairy farmer from the Naki.
French cars always seemed to have sublime rides, while still being able to handle well.
Peugeot seemed to lose this ability in the last few decades or so, but it also shows that with the 308, they really do seem to have got it back again.
Barrelling down the autoroute from Lyon towards Saint-Tropez on the first day easily showed that even the billy-basic non-turbo 1.2-litre, three-cylinder manual 308 was more than capable of cruising happily and comfortably at the 130km/h speed limit and well beyond that - the locals seem to universally ignore the 130km/h limit and sit around 150km/h most of the time, even the constabulary.
The following day, in a diesel 308 station wagon (SW), we headed up winding roads from the coast towards Lake Annecy, that sits just below Geneva on the French side of the border.
The third largest lake in France - and apparently also the cleanest in Europe - Lake Annecy is a popular tourist destination, and that was obvious from the massive train of traffic attempting to leave the area as we arrived in the evening.
Thanks to a poorly-plotted satnav route, we also got to experience how well the 308 SW handled a deeply rutted track that literally ran through a paddock behind the town of Menthon-Saint-Bernard (birthplace of Bernard of Menthon, otherwise known as Saint Bernard, or the bloke the dogs are named after), which was "surprisingly well".
After a night in the Palace de Menthon on the shores of Lake Annecy, we jumped into a fantastic automatic 1.2-litre turbocharged triple 308 hatch for a sprint through the edge of Switzerland, across the top of Lake Geneva, up to Peugeot's spiritual home, and home of its museum and main manufacturing facilities in Sochaux.
This was definitely a case of unintentionally managing to get the best car on the best roads, as the winding, hilly slice of heaven that were the roads through Switzerland were a fantastic match to the lithe chassis and eager engine in the 308 equipped with the wonderful 96kW/230Nm 1.2 triple and the perfectly matched six-speed transmission.
It is certainly the best match of engine and automatic transmission I have ever experienced in a French car, and would go so far as to say it would be one of the best on sale today. Golf included.
A visit to the fascinating Musee de l'Aventure Peugeot (Peugeot Museum) rounded out a thoroughly revealing - and visually stunning - trip. After all, who would have thought that a trip across its home country would prove so convincingly that the 308 was more than capable of taking on the best in its segment on the rest of the world's roads, but particularly New Zealand's?
To be honest, not me, but that certainly turned out to be the case.
• For the NZ specs of the Peugeot 308 click here
