Johannesburg - There was a time in Africa, before the turn of the 21st century, when picking a good family car invariably meant securing yourself a Peugeot.

Buying a car from the French firm promised you “the drive of your life”, and even if that was only likely to be true if you endured an otherwise sheltered motoring existence, a model with a lion on its nose was generally the best driving in its class.

It is not surprising to find an old, disused Peugeot in many homesteads in Southern Africa’s rural areas.

Cars such as the 205 supermini, 306 hatchback and the 106 city car gave Peugeot a good name because of their easy handling.

But things have changed in recent years.

Dull-to-drive offerings like the 206 and 307 have seen the carmaker’s fortunes decline.

Recently releases like the 5008 and 3008 have threatened to be exciting but have somehow fallen flat.

Now with the 508, Peugeot may have found the breakthrough it has been looking for to make it back into the big time.

Replacing the 407 and the “ancient” 607, the Mondeo-sized 508 can be considered a significant and competitive offering.

The 508’s lineage can be directly traced even farther than the 405, right back to the 403 of 1955.

That car was replaced by the 404, then the 504 and then the 505. The 505 in turn was replaced by both the 405 (1987) and the larger 605 (1989), culminating in the 407 and 607.

The 508 reunites them again.

Peugeot’s first five series model since the demise of the rear-drive 505 range in 1993 marks a return to elegant design after the lacklustre 407.

The 508 introduces better quality, more space, improved safety and significantly more efficient drivetrains, along with fixed-cost servicing, fresh variant designations and a plethora of low-carbon eco-options.

The largest Peugeot ever sold in Africa and France, it serves as a replacement for the unloved 607 flagship as well as the medium-sized 407.

It shares the PSA Platform-3 architecture with the current Citroen C5.

But the 508 is lighter and more aerodynamic than all of these and achieves a five-star ENCAP safety rating.

Standard transmission is six-speed auto – with paddle-shifts on the GT.

Interestingly, the 508 GT adopts a variation of the 407’s aluminium drop-link double-wishbone front suspension in lieu of a more conventional MacPherson strut frontend found on the rest of the range.

All models employ independent multi-link rear end, four-wheel disc brakes and an electro-hydraulic powered rack-and-pinion steering system that continually alters its assistance according to road conditions.