Peugeot 108 TOP Convertible Review

There’s plenty of space in the Peugeot 108 TOP’s front seats for you to get comfortable – even if you’re six-feet tall. The standard height-adjustable driver’s seat will help make sure you get a good view out – even if you’re quite small – and you can adjust the height of the steering wheel to give you an unobstructed view of the speedo.

Just like the VW Up, you only get two seats in the back of the Peugeot 108 TOP. There’s plenty of space for two kids to get comfy, but adults will find headroom and legroom much tighter than in the VW. At least you get front and rear doors as standard, though, so you don’t have to climb out to let you passengers jump in the back.

You get two pairs of Isofix anchor points in the back for fitting child seats, but the anchor points themselves are buried deep within the seat padding so they aren’t very easy to locate. At least the standard rear doors make it relatively easy to lift in a seat, and you don’t have to stoop down much to strap in a child, either.

The Peugeot 108 TOP’s front door bins are large enough to hold a one-litre bottle, and you get two extra cup holders on the centre console. The glovebox isn’t particularly generous, however, but then few small cars have particularly capacious storage bins inside.

The rear doors come with similar-size bins to those in the front, but because the Peugeot 108 TOP only has two back seats, you don’t get a folding rear armrest. You do, however, get a single cupholder between the front seats for your passengers in the back to share.

The Peugeot 108 TOP’s 196-litre boot is quite cramped – even by small-car standard. There’s just enough space for two small suitcases, but the likes of the VW Up, Skoda Citigo and SEAT Mii can all carry a few extra bags. That said, it’s no smaller than the boot you get in the standard 108.

The Peugeot 108 TOP’s narrow boot opening doesn’t make it very easy to lift in objects and the raised boot lip means you’ll have to hoist heavy items up quite high when you’re packing it with luggage. You can’t get it with an adjustable boot floor and there aren’t any particularly clever shopping hooks or tether points, either.

The back seats fold down in a two-way split as standard so you can carry some long luggage and a back-seat passenger at once. Flip both rear seats down and the Peugeot 108 TOP’s boot grows to 780 litres – that’s almost 180 litres less than you get in a VW Up, but no smaller than in the standard hardtop 108.

You’ll still have to remove a bike’s wheels before it’ll fit, however, and there’s a significant step up behind the back seats that makes it tricky to push heavy luggage right up behind the front seats.

Every Peugeot 108 TOP comes with a 1.0-litre petrol engine. This 72hp unit drives the front wheels and will accelerate this compact soft-top from 0-62mph in a far-from-spritely 13.8 seconds. That’s very slightly faster than a comparable 75hp VW Up, but unlike the Up, you can’t upgrade the 108 with a more powerful engine. As a result, it feels very sluggish indeed, especially with three passengers on board.

In terms of fuel economy, Peugeot claims the 108 TOP returns 68.9mpg. In normal driving conditions, however, you can expect to see it manage a figure in the mid-fifties.

You get a five-speed manual gearbox as standard but you can upgrade to a five-speed automatic if you’d rather not change gear yourself. It’s not particularly responsive, however, and makes the 108 TOP slower and thirstier. Automatic versions take a very leisurely 15.2 seconds to reach 62mph from rest and return a smidge less fuel economy than the standard manual model.

The Peugeot 108 TOP is just as easy to drive as the standard 108, but it doesn’t do a particularly good job of ironing out potholes. Even with the roof closed it’s noisier at speed than the standard hardtop model and it’s significantly less relaxing to drive than the likes of the VW Up.

This isn’t a car you’ll be wanting to take on long motorway journeys very often – more likely, you’ll be pottering around town with the roof down. The Peugeot 108 TOP’s small size and light steering make nipping through traffic a breeze but it does tend to lean a little more than the VW Up in tight corners.

The Peugeot 108 TOP’s large windows give you a good view out and its small size makes it easy to park. You can even get it with a reversing camera to help you stop a hair’s breadth from the car behind.

The Peugeot 108 – on which the 108 TOP convertible is based – earned a fair four-star safety rating from Euro NCAP. The tests have been made much stricter since it was tested back in 2014, however.

As a result, you’ll want to pay extra for some of the 108 TOP’s optional safety kit – including automatic emergency braking. This feature – that’ll hit the brakes automatically if the car detects an obstacle in the road ahead – also comes with traffic sign recognition and lane departure warning.