Car review: Peugeot 3008 crossover SUV pushes premium style to the max

What does your car smell of? Wet dog, maybe. A whiff of used nappy, in the case of the family folk. Bubble gum, from one of those cardboard air fresheners the hand car wash guys give you. Petrol, if you’re very unlucky.

Or perhaps a lovely melange of all these aromas that represent your very own smell-signature, every bit as distinctive as anything Givenchy or Chanel ever came up with. Maybe too you’re unfortunate enough to share life with a partner who likes to release their own fragrance from time to time.

I know. Enough already of the olefactory overload. Time to get you and yours into Peugeot’s new 3008 midi-sized SUV and, for want of a better phrase, “Qashqai-basher” (the British-built Nissan Qashqai being the progenitor of all these “crossover” designs).

Here, in your sharply styled 3008, you can, at the flick of a switch, specify your own cabin smell, depending on mood, or the mood you wish to create. Your choice, and I quote here the official launch literature:

What’s more each is available in three levels of intensity and can be teamed with different lighting to complete your individual micro climate.

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So now you know what Peugeot has been up to lately, just in case you thought they were wasting their time making the cars safer or more reliable or something.

Actually, that is unfair. It’s too new, the 3008 and its family of advanced three-cylinder engines, to say much about reliability, but it has the full complement of kit families expect nowadays, including the ability to park itself, monitor your driving and limit your speeding, all very welcome. It has the latest in wireless smart phone charging. It has traction and hill descent controls (though not true four wheel drive). What else? Panoramic sunroof; blind spot monitoring; 8-inch touchcreen. The usual stuff. It drives well, too, and does almost everything a proper 4x4 can do.

Like they all do, as a matter of fact, these little SUV crossovers. What car makers are having to do nowadays to differentiate their product is to focus on personalisation. This used to be confined to clashing paint combos on Minis and Fiat 500s, but that is no longer enough. Hence the fragrance thing.

Hence the way most exec saloons allow you to choose your own suspension and gearbox settings. Hence, for the 3008, the option of a micro “electrically assisted” scooter that can nestle in its boot (the scooter will do 12mph and has a range of 7 miles or so).

Hence the option of a “Coupe Franche” paintjob, with a two tone plus two texture (gloss and matt finish) mixture. Hence a highly impressive Focal sound system. All very premium.

It tells you a good deal, this sort of attention to consumerist detail. It tells you that we are more demanding than ever and that the car companies are as impressive as ever in meeting those desires (they hardly qualify as basic human needs). It confirms that nothing smells or feels quite as nice as a new car you’ve designed for yourself.