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RollsRoyce

ROLLS-ROYCE ‘MODELS OF THE MARQUE’: THE 1900s – THE ROYCE 10 H.P. & ROLLS-ROYCE 10 H.P.

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  • A short historical past of the Royce 10 H.P., the primary motor automobile constructed by Henry Royce, and the Rolls-Royce 10 H.P., the inaugural mannequin for the newly established marque
  • First in a collection celebrating a landmark mannequin from every decade of the marque’s historical past, from its foundational years within the 1900s to the up to date Goodwood period
  • Year-long retrospective marks the a hundred and twentieth anniversary of the primary assembly between Henry Royce and The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls in 1904
  • Each motor automobile represents important developments in design, development, engineering, and know-how that proceed to affect the marque’s merchandise in the present day


“We begin this retrospective series with not one, but two motor cars built by Henry Royce in the early 20th Century. The Royce 10 H.P., completely reengineered from an existing, well-regarded machine, was the catalyst for the partnership between our founders; the Rolls-Royce 10 H.P. was the first motor car built and sold under the Rolls-Royce name, setting a template for the company and its products that endures to this day. These models are inseparable in their origins and the story of the company’s foundation. Individually and together, they have a unique place in our history and therefore deserve equal recognition in the pantheon of early Rolls‑Royce motor cars.”
 Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Relations and Heritage, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

In 1903, electrical engineer Henry Royce was working his personal manufacturing firm in Manchester. Though profitable, bother was brewing for Royce and different British corporations, within the type of a rising tide of cheaper, imported electrical items. Ever the perfectionist, Royce refused to decrease his requirements to compete, and as a substitute regarded to diversify into new areas. It was a choice that will change historical past.

In September 1902, Royce had purchased a small French automobile, a ten H.P. Decauville. It was a extremely regarded mannequin from a well-respected make, and among the many best accessible at the moment. Characteristically, nevertheless, Royce swiftly recognized quite a few flaws and weaknesses in its design, engineering and development.

Earlier that 12 months, he had learn a newly printed ebook, The Automobile: Its Construction and Management. This satisfied him to make use of the Decauville as the idea for a greater motor automobile of his personal. He started by fastidiously dismantling it, making detailed notes and drawings of each element. His new design sensibly retained a few of its key options, but additionally launched a plethora of revolutionary enhancements to the bearings, radiator, carburation and transmission.

He was additionally obsessive about decreasing the motor automobile’s total weight, which he achieved by means of meticulous engineering and metallurgy, along with less complicated measures like meting out with the Decauville’s solid bronze warning bell that alone weighed round 20kg (over 40lb). Perhaps most importantly, Royce designed and constructed his personal twin-cylinder engine, the primary within the lengthy line of legendary powerplants for each motor vehicles and plane he would create throughout his distinguished profession.

On 1 April 1904, his first full motor automobile – the Royce 10 H.P. – took to the street for the primary time. For Royce, and the world, nothing would ever be the identical once more.

Meanwhile, in London, an aristocratic motoring and aviation pioneer had opened considered one of Britain’s first automobile dealerships in 1902. He was The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls and enterprise was booming, however Rolls was pissed off that each one his inventory was designed and manufactured abroad; no automobile produced domestically met his shoppers’ wants, or his personal requirements as a Cambridge-educated engineer and profitable aggressive driver.

A good friend, Henry Edmunds, had been loaned one of many first manufacturing examples of Royce’s new 10 H.P. motor automobile. It was, he enthused, precisely what Rolls was on the lookout for. On 4 May 1904, on the behest of his good friend Edmunds, Rolls travelled to Manchester to fulfill Royce and check out the motor automobile. Though fully totally different in background and temperament, the 2 males bonded instantly, and Rolls was smitten with the motor automobile. There after which, he declared he would promote each motor automobile Royce may make, by means of a brand new firm and beneath a brand new title: Rolls-Royce.

Launched the identical 12 months, their first motor automobile, the Rolls-Royce 10 H.P., was an analogous twin-cylinder mannequin derived from the sooner Royce vehicles, however with many additional design and mechanical enhancements. Through this diminutive however epochal motor automobile, the fledgling model quickly gained the fame for engineering excellence, consolation, efficiency and reliability it retains 120 years later.

By 1905, Rolls-Royce had added three, 4 and six-cylinder fashions, whose successes in each trials and gross sales have been constructed on the twin-cylinder 10 H.P. mannequin’s foundations. All completely embodied Royce’s most well-known ideas, which nonetheless encourage the marque in the present day: “Take the best that exists and make it better,” and “If it doesn’t exist, design it.”

RollsRoyce

ROLLS-ROYCE ‘MAKERS OF THE MARQUE’: ERNEST HIVES

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ERNEST HIVES: 21 APRIL 1886 – 24 APRIL 1965

  • A quick overview of the life and profession of Ernest Hives, born 21 April 1886
  • Pivotal determine within the early days of the marque, driving Rolls-Royce’s success within the nice motor trials of the early twentieth Century, earlier than changing into Chairman of the Board in 1950
  • Fourth in a sequence profiling the principal characters within the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars basis story because the marque celebrates its one hundred and twentieth anniversary in 2024
  • Insights into the folks, personalities and intertwined relationships that indelibly formed the marque’s creation, improvement and lasting legacy
  • Each account underlines and celebrates the important human dimension of ‘the best car in the world’
     

“Even for so gifted an engineer as Henry Royce, there’s a limit to how far theory can take you: there comes a point where someone has to determine whether your design actually works in practice. In the early days of Rolls-Royce, that was Ernest Hives. From humble origins, Hives turned his fascination for motor cars and outstanding self-taught driving skills into a glittering career with Rolls-Royce, first as an experimental test driver, then as one of the ‘works’ team contesting the great motor trials of the day. His observations and hands-on experiences from the road would have been crucial to Royce’s continuous improvement process, making him a key figure in the technical development of the ‘best car in the world’. 
 Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Relations and Heritage, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Ernest Walter Hives was born on 21 April 1886 in Reading, Berkshire. In 1898, aged just 12, he began a three-year apprenticeship with a local engineering company that had a sideline dealing in motor cars.

From the outset, the young Hives was captivated by these fascinating new machines. He saw his future in them and, like Henry Royce a generation earlier, he did not allow his humble background and limited formal education to impede his ambitions. He shared Royce’s unending capacity for hard work, putting in long hours and applying what was evidently a similarly lively and enquiring mind. In particular, he would watch and listen to those on the night shift, steadily building his knowledge of the motor cars’ inner workings and operation.

But his was not merely a theoretical interest, and he soon taught himself to drive by moving cars around the garage. We can assume this was with his employers’ blessing since, though still only 14, he quickly graduated to the road, where he taught clients to drive. His combination of technical understanding, an intuitive ‘feel’ for the motor car and outstanding practical skills would shape his career in the years that followed.

That nascent career took a defining turn sometime around 1903 (the precise date is not known) when Hives rendered assistance to a motorist who was having trouble with one of his motor cars (likewise, history does not record whether this was at the Reading garage or out on the open road). What is certain is the motorist’s identity: The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls.

Whenever and wherever this encounter occurred, Rolls was so impressed that he promptly took Hives on as his personal chauffeur. The young man’s star continued to rise with a swift promotion to the position of mechanic at C S Rolls & Co, the prestigious London motor car dealership established by his new employer at the start of 1903.

But driving remained Hives’ true calling. He left C S Rolls & Co to work first at Owens and then Napier, for whom he drove in the gruelling Scottish Reliability Trials of 1907 and 1908, and also at the 1908 Brooklands meeting, where he sported jockey’s racing colours of yellow and white (which he described as looking like ‘a poached egg’).

In 1908, he made what would be the most pivotal move of his career; taking a job at Rolls-Royce, by now in its fourth year, as an experimental tester. His own account suggests he was less than overjoyed at the prospect, at least initially. “When I got to Derby in 1908 and walked out of the station it was raining hard,” he wrote later. “Looking up Midland Road, it was so drab that I spun a coin to decide whether to go on to Rolls-Royce or catch the next train home.” By such small possibilities, momentary choices and tiny margins for error are careers, lives and historical past itself so typically decided.

Rolls-Royce had created the brand new position of experimental tester following its exhibiting on the 1907 Scottish Reliability Trial. Not that the occasion had gone badly for the fledgling marque, quite the opposite: the 40/50 H.P. – higher generally known as the Silver Ghost – had comprehensively crushed the opposition, together with the Napier pushed by Hives; much more impressively, the punishing 15,000-mile take a look at had been the motor automobile’s first aggressive endurance run. Never one to relaxation on his laurels, nonetheless, Henry Royce noticed this overwhelming success as conclusive proof of the necessity for continued testing to, in his personal phrases, ‘take the best that exists and make it better’.

Hives joined the corporate’s newly fashioned experimental division, and instantly proved a pure at this extremely structured, technically exacting work. His insights into the subtleties of a motor automobile’s efficiency and responses – that it developed a resonance noise at a sure velocity, that the chassis felt both too stiff or not stiff sufficient below cornering, or that the engine appeared to have a ‘flat spot’ at a selected rpm (revolutions per minute) – would have been invaluable to Royce and his design workforce. Indeed, such had been his presents that when the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) introduced its headline 1911 endurance trial from London to Edinburgh and again, Hives was robotically chosen to drive Rolls-Royce’s entry: Silver Ghost 1701.

Designed as an ‘Experimental Speed Car’, 1701 simply gained the occasion, through which entrants accomplished your complete 794-mile journey between the 2 capitals locked in high gear. Under Hives’ knowledgeable dealing with, the automobile averaged nearly 20mph and returned a then unheard‑of gasoline effectivity of over 24mpg – genuinely astonishing figures given the parlous state of Edwardian Britain’s roads, and a testomony to Hives’ abilities, braveness and powers of focus behind the wheel, in addition to Royce’s engineering.

Rolls-Royce adopted up this efficiency by contesting the much more daunting Alpine Trials, held over eight days and a couple of,600km on a few of the highest roads in Europe. After an embarrassing underperformance by a ‘privateer’ automobile in 1912, Managing Director Claude Johnson was wanting to set the document straight and approached the 1913 occasion in sometimes energetic and uncompromising vogue. He assembled an official ‘works’ workforce of three specifically ready Silver Ghosts, every with a hand-picked driver and mechanic, plus a fourth automobile constructed to the identical specification pushed by personal proprietor James Radley. Hives was one of many firm’s high drivers – as confirmed by his being the primary to exceed 100mph in a Silver Ghost – and subsequently an apparent choice for Johnson’s new crack workforce. Piloting the Number Two automobile, accompanied by mechanic George Hancock, he accomplished a near-faultless run (he was docked a single level for stalling on leaving the parking space in Salzburg) that earned him one of many workforce’s three silver medals, in an total efficiency that noticed the Silver Ghosts typically accepted as ‘the fastest, quietest and strongest cars in the event’.

Alongside his racing exploits, Hives continued to make an important contribution to Rolls-Royce’s analysis and improvement efforts as an experimental tester, introducing the primary ‘chassis bump rig’, that would take a look at chassis’ elements to destruction. He additionally undertook the nonetheless probably hazardous work of testing Royce’s newest designs on the open highway. Having settled on France as the perfect place to hold out high-speed highway testing, he made common sorties alongside a route he devised between Paris and Royce’s winter house at Le Canadel, close to Nice. For somebody who had adored motor vehicles since childhood, this will need to have been as near the proper job as it’s attainable to get.

The natural-born expertise and sheer love of driving that Hives first demonstrated as an adolescent by no means left him. Many who knew him spoke of a ‘sixth sense’ he had when driving, seeming to know instinctively if the highway forward was clear and when he may take the quickest line via a nook or wanted to ease off.

As his profession progressed, Hives turned more and more concerned with growing Rolls-Royce’s aero engines in addition to its automotive merchandise. In 1937, he turned a Board Director and General Works Manager; his most vital act was to separate the corporate’s motor automobile (chassis) and aero engine operations into two unbiased entities, which stays the case to this present day.

In 1946, he turned Managing Director, and in 1950, Chairman of the Board: that very same 12 months, he obtained a peerage and, as 1st Baron Hives, accomplished a unprecedented journey from working as Charles Rolls’s chauffeur to main the nice firm his late employer had co-founded nearly 50 years earlier. Yet the person who had doggedly labored his manner up from a Reading storage to the House of Lords at all times remained modest, describing himself with an understatement worthy of Royce’s equally understated self-characterisation as ‘just a mechanic’. Respectfully, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars begs to vary.

Cars

Are Gas Or Diesel Trucks Better For Off-Roading?

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In transient off-road path journeys, you in all probability will not have an extra of weighty provides in your truck — and, by extension, will not essentially need to be driving a rugged diesel machine. Shorter off-road journeys, maybe particularly in a muddy locale, might be a greater match for a fuel rig (the essential filters of a diesel engine will not recognize such floor both).

What a diesel engine tends to do very nicely, in the meantime, is keep effectivity and efficiency throughout longer, more difficult drives, with highly effective torque offering the momentum to climb the inclines a driver might face throughout extra elevated off-road adventures. 

Diesel vans are higher suited to longer journeys, too, as a result of that is the place their doubtlessly superior working financial system can shine. A diesel engine may last more, partially owing to the truth that such engines function at a diminished RPM and so aren’t essentially pushing themselves as exhausting. The almost-self-lubricating nature of diesel itself, too, promotes longer life.

Though upkeep could also be extra advanced and expensive for a diesel mannequin, it is vital to notice that a lot is determined by the particular car and terrain: Newer diesels will be developed to be a lot much less heavy in a relative sense, and there is in the end no definitive reply as to whether diesel is healthier for off-roading than fuel, although its conventional strengths relative to the latter might are likely to favor off-road use. Keep your supposed use instances in thoughts, alongside together with your specific potential car’s capabilities.

RollsRoyce

ROLLS-ROYCE ‘MAKERS OF THE MARQUE’: ELEANOR VELASCO THORNTON

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ELEANOR VELASCO THORNTON: 15 APRIL 1880 – 30 DECEMBER 1915

  • A short overview of the life and profession of Eleanor Velasco Thornton, born 15 April 1880
  • Secretary to each Claude Johnson and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, muse of illustrator and sculptor Charles Sykes and the mannequin for the marque’s iconic Spirit of Ecstasy mascot
  • Third in a collection profiling the principal characters within the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars basis story because the marque celebrates its a hundred and twentieth anniversary in 2024
  • Insights into the individuals, personalities and intertwined relationships that indelibly formed the marque’s creation, growth and lasting legacy
  • Each account underlines and celebrates the important human dimension of ‘the best car in the world’

“Eleanor Thornton has a singular place in Rolls-Royce historical past. She is finest often called the purported mannequin for our Spirit of Ecstasy mascot, however how this happened is a part of a much more complicated and engaging story. Secrets, sacrifices and the ever-present danger of scandal dominated her tragically quick however intense and vibrant life. She was a robust, clever, self‑assured and extremely influential girl in an automotive world that was then virtually solely male-dominated. She additionally performed a pivotal half in a timeless, tangled, deeply human drama that might finally make her, and the art work she impressed, immortal.”
 Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Communications and Heritage, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Eleanor Velasco Thornton was born on 15 April in 1880 in Stockwell, south-west London. Little is understood of her adolescence: what’s sure is that because the twentieth Century opened, she was working as assistant to the ebullient and charismatic Claude Johnson, General Secretary of the Automobile Club of Great Britain & Ireland (later the RAC) and soon-to-be enterprise companion of The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls.

Eleanor rented rooms at The Pheasantry on the Kings Road, Chelsea; now a Grade II Listed constructing, its eclectic and flamboyant architectural thrives had been the work of its then proprietor, the artist and inside decorator Amédée Joubert. At that point, it was house to a thriving colony of artists (within the Nineteen Thirties, the basement grew to become a restaurant and consuming membership, the regulars of which included the painters Augustus John and Francis Bacon, the poet Dylan Thomas and legendary actor Humphrey Bogart; it stays a nightclub to today). Amid these bohemian environment, Eleanor lived a exceptional double life: by day, an expert govt assistant; by evening, a life-model for the Pheasantry’s resident artists. One of these for whom she usually posed was a gifted illustrator, Charles Sykes. 

Eleanor’s life modified utterly and irrevocably in 1902. That yr, virtually 100 miles from London, on the sting of the New Forest in Hampshire, John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, was grappling with a longstanding drawback. He was but to ascend to his future title of 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu; within the interim, for all his impeccable lineage and shining prospects, he was perennially wanting money. By a double misfortune, his life’s nice ardour was the motor automobile, which in these pioneering days was nonetheless very a lot the protect of these with deep pockets. 

Happily, Montagu had a aptitude for journalism, so his impressed answer was to arrange Britain’s first devoted motoring journal, The Car Illustrated. Montagu may deal with the writing, modifying and publishing himself; however for pictures, he wanted an expert illustrator. In a type of odd coincidences that so typically form historical past, the person he employed was Charles Sykes.

Among Montagu’s circle of motoring buddies was Claude Johnson. When, by him, Montagu met Eleanor, he was immediately captivated by her intelligence and promptly poached her, providing her the place of Office Manager at his journal. Eleanor accepted, and the aristocratic writer and his new colleague – 14 years his junior – quickly launched into a prolonged clandestine affair.

Thereafter, Sykes and Eleanor discovered themselves abruptly thrown collectively as colleagues at The Car Illustrated, whereas already properly acquainted with each other below very totally different circumstances. Whether this brought about any awkwardness between them is unimaginable to say; but it surely appears unlikely, since Eleanor was quickly posing for him once more.

During this era (the exact date is unknown) Sykes produced a mascot for Montagu’s Rolls‑Royce Silver Ghost. Called ‘The Whisper’, it was a small aluminium statuette of a younger girl in fluttering robes with a forefinger to her lips. It has been confirmed that Eleanor was the mannequin: whether or not the mascot was a token of appreciation from Sykes to his buddy and employer, or made at Eleanor’s instigation as a present for her lover, stays a thriller. Whatever the reality, Montagu displayed it on each Rolls-Royce automobile he owned till his dying in 1929; maybe as a discreet acknowledgment of his love for Eleanor, which he saved secret for thus lengthy.

Tragically, Eleanor was amongst a whole lot who drowned when the P&O passenger ship SS Persia sank within the Mediterranean in 1915. Montagu was among the many handful of survivors: he spent three days adrift on an upturned lifeboat, having suffered a fractured shoulder. He was additionally nursing a damaged coronary heart. Devasted, he by no means absolutely obtained over the emotion of the lack of Eleanor – of which, naturally, he may by no means converse publicly. But for the remainder of his life, she was with him in spirit wherever he travelled in his Rolls-Royce motor automobile.

RollsRoyce

ROLLS-ROYCE ‘MAKERS OF THE MARQUE’: HENRY EDMUNDS

HENRY EDMUNDS: 20 MARCH 1853 – 18 NOVEMBER 1927

  • A short overview of the life and profession of Henry Edmunds, born 20 March 1853
  • Earned his place in historical past as the person who organized the historic first assembly between his associates Henry Royce and Charles Rolls on 4 May 1904
  • First in a sequence profiling the principal characters within the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars basis story, every launched to have fun the topic’s beginning date, because the marque celebrates its 120th anniversary
  • Insights into the individuals, personalities and intertwined relationships that indelibly formed the marque’s creation, growth and lasting legacy
  • Personal histories underline and have fun the important human dimension of ‘the best car in the world’, as exemplified within the trendy period by means of Bespoke and Coachbuild commissions

 
 “This year we celebrate the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between Henry Royce and Charles Rolls. But while it’s their two names that became world-famous, Rolls-Royce as we know it might never have existed without the intervention, influence and contributions of others. In this series, as well as the founders themselves, we remember those crucial actors, perhaps less recognised by posterity yet absolutely essential to the Rolls-Royce story – beginning, appropriately, with the man who arranged that first historic encounter.”
 Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Relations and Heritage, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Henry Edmunds was born on 20 March 1853, in Halifax, West Yorkshire. His father, an engineer and iron service provider, gave him a casual apprenticeship, from which the younger Henry developed a permanent ardour for the then-new world of electrical energy. Having befriended Joseph Swan (the inventor of the incandescent lightbulb) he grew to become a salesman for the Swan Lamps firm. Among his clients was the Royal Navy: in 1881, HMS Inflexible grew to become the primary British warship to be lit with electrical bulbs. He was additionally associates with Thomas Edison (the inventor of just about the whole lot else) and was current at each the primary profitable sound recording and phone name.

In 1886, Edmunds grew to become a accomplice in electrical cable-makers WT Glover & Co, primarily based in Manchester. The firm’s fortunes had been reworked with the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 – and, extra particularly, the docks and the world’s first devoted industrial property, Trafford Park, alongside it. Glover’s received the contract to produce the cabling for the huge arc-lighting system, which was designed and manufactured by one other Manchester firm, F H Royce & Co, owned by one Henry Royce.

To full the works, each Royce and Glover’s wanted capital. Through a posh sequence of reorganisations, modifications of identify, mutual shareholdings and administration overlaps between their respective corporations, Henry Royce and Henry Edmunds grew to become established enterprise associates and shut associates.

In 1899, Edmunds joined the Automobile Club of Great Britain & Ireland (later the Royal Automobile Club, or RAC). Edmunds was captivated by motoring and eagerly utilized his agile, creative thoughts to the toddler know-how’s myriad challenges and potentialities. The following 12 months he entered the 1,000 Mile Trial from London to Edinburgh and again, organised by the Club’s imposing and ebullient secretary, Claude Johnson. Among his fellow entrants was The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls, and the three grew to become agency associates.

By 1904, Edmunds had taken a enterprise curiosity within the Parsons Non-skid Co Ltd, which made ‘chains’ that fitted to automotive tyres to stop what was referred to as ‘slide-slipping’. They entered a contest, the Slide Slip Trials, on the finish of April that 12 months, however on the final minute discovered themselves with no appropriate automotive. Edmunds requested Royce if they might use his first 10 H.P. automotive. Royce agreed and the automotive was rapidly despatched by practice to London, the place Edmunds drove it efficiently within the 1,000-mile occasion. Charles Rolls additionally took half, however there isn’t any file of his having something to do with the Royce automotive.

Edmunds was enormously impressed by the ten H.P. He additionally knew Rolls was desperately searching for a high-quality British-made automotive to promote in his thriving London dealership. He was decided to carry the 2 males collectively, and earned his place in historical past when, on 4 May 1904 at The Midland Hotel in Manchester, he introduced: “Henry, may I introduce Charles Rolls”.

PeugeotUk

PEUGEOT PREVIEWS REVEAL OF NEW E-5008 WITH TEASER VIDEO

PEUGEOT has launched a short teaser video right now showcasing the inside of its new E-5008. The new E-5008 is the model’s newest massive electrical SUV and has been enhanced onboard with beneficiant ranges of inside area, seven seats and quick access to snug third-row seating.

The teaser video launched right now for the brand new PEUGEOT E-5008 provides a sneak peek of the newest electrical mannequin that may contribute to the model’s transfer upmarket.

The new PEUGEOT E-5008 is provided with the brand new PEUGEOT Panoramic i-Cockpit® which incorporates a floating, curved 21” HD panoramic display screen that mixes the head-up show with the central touchscreen. Positioned for optimum ergonomics, the panoramic display screen is barely curved in direction of the driving force whereas remaining completely accessible to the passenger.

The central a part of the E-5008’s dashboard additionally homes the i-Toggles, totally customisable touch-sensitive buttons that may be programmed to offer fast entry to 10 of the person’s favorite capabilities, reminiscent of calling a selected contact, beginning navigation to a steadily used vacation spot or setting the air-conditioning to a favorite temperature.

The floating panoramic display screen is enhanced by the ambient LED lighting, which might be customised in eight completely different colors. Meanwhile, a brand new compact and ergonomic steering wheel with touch-sensitive controls heightens the sensation of modernity

The new PEUGEOT E-5008 shall be totally revealed in March 2024.

Watch the brand new E-5008 teaser video here.