The talk of the town tonight may be the Ram 1500 Revolution concept, but Ram wasn’t the only Stellantis brand to show off at CES, for the conglomerate’s French flank showed up big with the Peugeot Inception concept, a big sedan meant to melt your mind like a brie bake, just like the best French cars do. Let’s take a look at this glorious machine.
My word, that’s a lot of glass. The windshield doesn’t stop at the cowl, it keeps going all the way past the front axle despite the car’s silhouette featuring a long dash-to-axle ratio. The result is an incredibly strange greenhouse that makes this four-door sedan seem inspired by Bertone’s outlandish Lancia Stratos Zero. How bizarre is that?
The strangeness continues with giant fins off the front fenders that are more than slightly reminiscent of the fourth-generation Chevrolet Camaro. What an outlandish set of influences so far. Oh, and in case that isn’t enough, the fastback rear window and arrow-straight A-pillar give the illusion of a much more conventional silhouette than the Inception actually has. Oh yeah, and all the tinted windows shift between gold and purple for some reason. Maybe Lil Yachty dropped off some Wock in France on his way to Poland.
Around back, the aesthetic strangeness continues with one of the most dramatic kammtails in recent memory. A brutally back-cut flat panel punctuated by six long mirrored vertical lights, an illuminated wordmark, and six little accent lights contrasts with a bombastic vent-happy rear diffuser to create some Lamborghini vibes.
Up front, it’s a similar story with lighting, as the headlights share a motif with the tail lights. Three full-width horizontal light strips and an illuminated emblem contrast nicely with a massive chin spoiler that’s vintage touring car chunky. Add it all up and the result is a Peugeot like we haven’t seen in ages. It’s about damn time that Peugeot made another unequivocally French concept car, and this one’s almost strange enough to wear Citroen badging. Oh, and the news gets even better. The look of the Inception will influence the styling of future Peugeot production cars starting in 2025.
If you thought the bodywork of the Inception looked strange, get a load of this interior. The steering wheel isn’t actually a wheel and it doesn’t even have spokes, just four holes in what appears to be an induction cooktop wrapped in pipe insulation. In fact, it’s not even connected to the front tires, this thing’s steer-by-wire like an Infiniti Q50. Cue the uncontrollable retching from people who like driving. Hey, the focus here is on Level 4 autonomy rather than driving connection, so what Peugeot calls the Hypersquare seems appropriate.
Mind you, the rest of the cabin is strange enough to completely take your mind off of the directional apparatus. Forget a heads-up display, how about a digital gauge cluster shaped like a Roomba? The seats don’t look comfortable at all, but this doesn’t really matter because they look like velvet-wrapped pieces of avant-garde furniture, as you should expect in something French and futuristic. The driver sits almost lying down, an unorthodox position explained by the Inception’s dimensions. This is a car more than two inches longer than a BMW 5-Series, yet its roofline its an inch and a half lower than the roofline on a Mustang. Wild, right?
Perhaps more interesting than the styling is what lies beneath the sheetmetal of the Peugeot Inception. This thing rides on Stellantis’ STLA Large architecture for bigger cars. With an 800-volt high-voltage architecture, a 100 kWh battery pack, and dual motors, this thing cranks out 671 horsepower and can dash from zero-to-62 mph in less than three seconds. That’s proper super-sedan territory.
Alas, I wouldn’t count on anything looking like the Peugeot Inception concept to make it as a production car. It’s simply too out there, too outlandish, too unreasonable. However, if Peugeot had the guts to build something like this, it would be the first truly breathtaking large French sedan since the Citroen C6. Pretty please, Peugeot?
(Photo credits: Peugeot)
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3 quick questions:
1. Why is there a cheese grater in the center console?
2. Do you have to do crunches to get to the glove compartment?
3. What’s the cost of replacing that front windshield? It looks expensive.
Is that a thumbwheel? Turn using thumbs only? Weird, and challenging for me as I have a bum thumb.
When I look at the rear end my first thought is “that is a huge dust collector” back there.
Other than those tidbits, I like the look overall though. Different when different is good.
The Purple/Gold is just a plastic layer on the windows with the color changing depending on hte angle of the light source and sight.
While not allowed in France ( we have strict restrictions when it comes to window opacity ) on car, it’s a feature you can see here and there on shops and more.
The glass roof is also not something new for Stelantis… they have several Citroëns ( C3 Cactus, C4 Spacetourer/Picasso for example ) to build on.
And as you say, it’s almost wacky enough to be a Citroën… But it probably has some Citroën blood in it.
I shouldn’t enjoy those wheels as much as I do, but that design is so reminiscent of the 80s…I just don’t care for the fact that the tires got the rubber band treatment.
Is that windshield…Frenched?
It’s nice to see these brands bringing out concept *cars* for a change instead of SUVs and trucks (RAM excluded, of course). Cautiously optimistic that it’s a sign of future market trends (but probably not).
Stellantis, it’s not hard, most new Peugeots already look fantastic, just slap some Fratzogs on them and call them Dodges in the US. They get fresh product and you get US market access.
Not only an I glad it’s a car rather than an SUV but I’m also very pleased with the aesthetic. It actually bears familial resemblance to the current Peugeot fleet and so makes it just that little less unreal than it really is.
I’m about 98% sure that Peugeot designers got the memo about Stellantis and the acquisition of one of the American Big Three into the family gold, did a single web search between two cigarette puffs for “American sports car”, saw several image results of the Ford Mustang, and decided to make their own version to share/show to their new American cousins, not realizing (nor caring, because they’re French) that Ford hasn’t had a close relation to Dodge/Chrysler since the Dodge Bros left Ford to make their own company.
Au contraire, this doesn’t look like a mustang at all, more like a camaro.
I get mustang on that rear 3/4 view. ’67 Fastback (2067)
The 3-bar lights front and rear are very Mustangy (moreso the rear). The glass roof reminds me of the Giugiaro Mustang concept from 2006.