Developed under the codename T1 and approved for production in April 1994, the 206 launched in September 1998 as a hatchback, followed over the next few years by a coupé cabriolet (206 CC), an estate (206 SW) and, in Iran, a notchback saloon.[1] It was voted UK Car of the Year three years running from 1998 to 2001 and was one of Europe’s best-selling cars from 2001 to 2003.
Three trims are recorded here, spanning the range’s ordinary petrol, diesel and performance ends: the 1.4-litre TU3JP, reportedly the model’s single best-selling engine; the 1.6 HDi turbodiesel; and the GTi 180 (badged RC in mainland Europe), a 2.0-litre, 177 PS hot hatch built from 2003 to mark Peugeot’s early-2000s World Rally Championship titles. The GTi’s own article gives its top speed as both 217 km/h (in a powertrain table) and 220 km/h (in prose); the table figure is used here as the more precisely sourced of the two, and the discrepancy is noted rather than silently resolved.
A four-metre-long homologation special, the 206 Grand Tourisme (a run of 4,000 cars built solely to satisfy the FIA’s minimum-length rule for the 206 World Rally Car), is not recorded as a separate trim here: its mechanical specification was that of the then-unreleased GTI, not a distinct engine of its own.
