Not to be outdone by the refreshed Volkswagen Group trio (Volkswagen Golf, Skoda Octavia, Seat Leon) and the new Renault Megane, Peugeot is about to introduce a mild facelift for its 308 family hatchback. As these 'accidentally' leaked official images are showing, there aren’t going to be any drastic styling changes since the designers are only making subtle tweaks.
The most significant modifications are noticeable at the front; the Peugeot badge has been relocated from the bonnet to the grille, and the bonnet itself appears to be taller and 'beakier'. With one eye on Euro NCAP crash testing, Peugeot may thus have introduced a revised panel that performs better in pedestrian impact testing. The 'dotted' LED daytime running lights have been replaced by modern 'strip' LEDs located in the same position as on the pre-facelift car. Peugeot also revised the bumper by giving it bigger side vents and new fog lights.
At the rear, it seems only the graphics of the taillights have changed, although the bumper too might have gone through some updates as well; we can’t see all the details at this point because of the poor quality of the images.
As far as the interior cabin is concerned, it seems the refreshed 308 won’t be blessed with the second generation of Peugeot’s fantastic i-Cockpit as seen in the new 3008. As a consequence, the French compact hatchback and wagon will solider on with analogue dials for the instrument cluster whereas one of its main rivals, the Volkswagen Golf VII, can now be optionally had with an all-digital setup.
Details about the oily bits are not available at this point, although the 2018 Peugeot 308 facelift is expected to feature a newly-developed, slightly-downsized 1.5-litre BlueHDi turbodiesel in 100 and 120 horsepower flavours.
According to our colleagues from Motor1 France, the official launch is scheduled for June. It’s not known at this point whether the hot GTI version will be revealed right away or Peugeot will decide to wait a while before coming out with the range topper. In the meantime, here’s a speculative render of the 308 GTI...
Images: Forum-Peugeot
Render: Khalil Bouguerra / Virtuel-Car
Gallery: Peugeot 308 II