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Peugeot celebrates an impressive milestone with the launch of its RCZ – just don't say it looks like an Audi

Price £19,593
MPG 40.9
0-60mph 8.3 seconds

Remember the last time you bought a car? The poring over comparison websites, the cold anguish of price, the heady realisation that you were at last dumping the old biscuit tin for something with a radio that actually worked. You weighed up economy, comfort, safety, and all the indicators pointed to a super-reliable three-year-old Toyota Auris. If only your heart would boot your head into touch and let you buy something like this: a hedonistic coupé with stunted back seats and a sale tag twice what you'd allocated…

There's much to admire about the RCZ (and no it's not "Arsey Zed"), but it has one particular feature which is a game changer. Stand behind the car, let your eyes trail over its muscular rear and up towards the low-slung roof and they'll come to rest on the cute coupé's deliciously voluptuous back window – two perfect curves of glass merging seemlessly with the twin humps of the roof. This is the "double bubble", the RCZ's "wow" feature, and for the wavering purchaser it's a deal-sealer.

It was originally called the 308 RCZ as so much of the car is based on the 308, Peugeot's bestselling family hatchback. But the makers quickly realised the RCZ was the pretty butterfly that has hatched from the workmanlike pupa of the 308 and it was deemed best not to remind go-faster punters of the car's sedentary roots.

The RCZ has been greeted on the streets and in showrooms with barely concealed astonishment that Peugeot could make such a gem of a car. A Peugeot? What? But that is a disservice to the great French marque. It's true that the model line-up has been peppered with some forgettable cars in the past, but Peugeot has a long and glorious heritage. The ingenious folding metal roof, for instance, sported by all of today's coupé cabriolets, first appeared as long ago as the 1930s on the sublimely elegant Peugeot 401 Eclipse.

Stand back from the RCZ and Audi's iconic TT immediately springs to mind. The silhouette is so similar to the German wundercar that patent layers must have been rubbing their hands with glee. But there is one crucial difference: the Peugeot is £8,000 cheaper – low enough to woo buyers away from their Audi default setting. Despite the paysan price, this French car has set its sights on the bourgeoisie. It's solid, well-built and luxuriously appointed. It also has a (probably pointless) self-raising rear spoiler which lifts your spirits every time it rises out of the bodywork.

On the downside, the RCZ is blessed with two vestigial back seats which have as much in common with actual seats as your coccyx does with a usable tail. They seem partially developed, as if the designers have asked themselves what they can put in this space between the (already roomy) boot and the (very comfortable) front seats. A pet cage? A gaming console? Two shrunken chairs for size-00 models?

It is now 200 years since the Peugeot brothers, Jean-Pierre and Jean-Frédéric, established a company in their father's corn mill selling saws and tools, steel crinoline stays, salt and pepper mills and coffee grinders. Bicycles, motorcycles and cars soon followed and the firm has sold more than 55m vehicles worldwide. To celebrate its bicentennial, the manufacturer has unveiled a new slogan ("Motion & Emotion") and a refreshed two-tone Lion emblem. The Lion was originally adopted to illustrate the strength of the teeth of the brothers' handsaws. With the RCZ, it looks like Peugeot may once again have found its bite…

Testing times: a century of L plates

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre… This year BSM (bsm.co.uk) celebrates its 100th birthday, and much has changed on our roads since Stanley Roberts offered the country's first driving lesson in a Spyker which he kept at his mother's garage in Peckham Rye, south London. It was another 24 years before the first compulsory driving test

Tags: Motoring, Technology, The Observer, Features, Reviews

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Car review: Peugeot RCZ was originally published by Technology: Motoring | guardian.co.uk. Read the full story by clicking here.