Peugeot to Return to Pikes Peak with Its Stunning 208 T16—And Sébastien Loeb

Racing in the rarified air of Colorado’s Pikes Peak has been going on since 1916 and is one of the classics in American racing, but it also has a hold on overseas automakers. Suzuki may not even sell cars in this country anymore, but it and “Monster” Tajima are modern legends on the mountain. The words “Hyundai” and “racing” would be an odd combination at most every racetrack, yet at Pikes Peak, Rhys Millen and Hyundai Genesis are world-record holders. Audi has made a sizable mark of its own on the mountain with the likes of Walter Röhrl, Bobby Unser, and Michèle Mouton. So too has Peugeot, and it’s about to make a comeback.

When the 2013 Pikes Peak hill climb kicks off on June 30, starting number 208 in the top-notch Unlimited class will be taken, appropriately, by a Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak. The French marque revealed very little about the car, other than to say, “Its proportions are very different to those of the production 208.” It was revealed, however, that the rear wing is the very same as was used in the 908 prototype racer that won Le Mans in 22009. Regardless of what resides beneath the 208 T16′s beautiful bodywork, it will be fine tuned for the special nature of racing the fully-paved, 12.4-mile, 156-turn course that runs from 9390 feet up to 14,110. The car most certainly will achieve the feat in a time of less than 10 minutes.

We say certainly because Peugeot has the right driver for the climb. Sébastien Loeb, 39, is about as close as it gets to a perpetual title holder in any form of racing, having won the past nine World Rally Championship driver’s crowns. This year he has already won his record seventh Monte Carlo Rally and finished second in Sweden in what will be a reduced-schedule year, as he segues to road racing.

Normally, if you team the words Peugeot and United States, what follows will be “commercial failure,” but the French automaker has a history of racing success in the U.S. Dip way back into Indy 500 history and you’ll find Frenchman Jules Goux won that race in a Pug 100 years ago, Dario Resta did the same in 1916. What has Peugeot done for us lately? Overall wins at Sebring in 2010 and 2011 and a pair more at the Petit Le Mans (2009 and 2011). As for Pikes Peak, famed Finnish rally driver Ari Vatanen first raced there in 1987 with Peugeot’s 205 T16, losing out to Röhrl and his Audi Quattro. Vatanen was back and broke the hill record in 1988 with a Peugeot 405 T16, a run documented in an award-winning video—”Climb Dance.” The automaker returned in 1989 and won again, this time with driver Robby Unser, whose famed family has “owned” the hill for decades.