With phrases such as 'a sulky pudding of a car' and 'a stodgy mess' ringing in my ears, I was left in no doubt what our Fast Fleet contributors thought of the latest evo addition. I just hope they're more complimentary when they meet me for the first time, being a fellow evo debutant.
Although technically new to the fleet, the Peugeot already has a good few miles under its wheels, many of those as transport for staff photographer Andy Morgan and his 1700 assorted items of photographic equipment.

Bearing in mind how small the 206 is inside, I don't blame him for trading up to a proper estate, and given the choice of running an Audi S4 Avant I have to say I'd do the same thing. So instead of blasting up and down the country on photographic assignments, the 206 is now transporting me on a daily 70-mile commute. My journey to the office doesn't feature a direct route so I have the choice of taking the back roads (which, fortunately for me, includes the near-legendary B660) or sticking to main roads.

Given what this car is designed for, country roads should, indeed, be the ones to take me home. However, snow and ice have made this option much less appealing recently, so 206 and I have spent the vast majority of our daily commute staring at the back of a lorry on a busy A-road travelling at a boring 40mph. I'm looking forward to some warmer and drier mornings so I can use the 206 in its natural habitat.

I'm also looking forward to getting some new rubber on the front wheels. After 9000 miles the original Pirelli P7000s are looking past their best so it's probably not fair to draw too many judgements on the 206's grip and handling yet. However, the roundabouts that litter my journey home have revealed that it turns in sharply with little understeer, so the new tyres should improve things even further.

Talking of improvements, the 180 looks a lot better than its lesser-powered sibling: stainless steel-trimmed twin exhausts, fatter 17in alloys and colour-coded bumper strips set it apart and give it a more purposeful stance. Only a pair of xenon headlights are missing and on these dark nights the standard Peugeot items are proving less than illuminating.

Inside, the heavily-bolstered leather and Alcantara seats hold you in place very nicely and the general fit and finish of the cabin leaves the Renaultsport Clio 182 in the shade (admittedly one of the few areas where the 206 can claim to do this).

But on the open road the 180 is less impressive. Despite having spent only a couple of weeks behind the wheel I'm already feeling let down by the GTi. As the performance flagship of the range, the 180 falls short of the competition in so many areas. The competition in question being led by the Clio 182, which racer and contributor Phil Bennett recently described as 'the best hot hatch ever built' (issue 065). A week spent in its predecessor, the Clio 172, makes me inclined to believe him.

It's not that the 206 is slow - with 180bhp under the bonnet it's actually rather quick, especially when you wind the engine up to 5000rpm. At this point it starts to accelerate a lot harder and become more vocal - and the effect doesn't subside until the 7000rpm red line.

But the gearbox makes it difficult to keep the engine spinning within this band. The shift action is sloppy - a common trait among Peugeots. I'm surprised that a more direct action wasn't engineered-in at the design stage for this hottest
of 206s.

And that seems to be the GTi 180's problem - it's a bit of a halfway house. Perhaps as we spend more time together my feelings will change. And once the mornings get lighter and drier, the B660 awaits...