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Peugeot has pulled the covers off its 'vision' of the ultimate saloon - the Exalt Concept. This jaw-dropping hybrid machine is said to combine 'western elegance and eastern sophistication', presumably because it is another of those cars that is targeted heavily at China, the most important market in the world to most car manufacturers right now.
Exterior
You can't fail to notice that the 4.7-metre long Exalt has two-tone bodywork. This is because the majority of it, at the front, is finished in bare steel, said to evoke the French cars of the twenties and thirties that bore hand-formed bodywork hammered out by a master panel beater. The Exalt's body is therefore made in precisely the same way.
The more incredible bit is the red section at the back, though, which is an efficient textile with a technical grain structure, designed to reduce the Exalt's overall coefficient of drag (Cd). Such is its appearance and feel that Peugeot has dubbed it 'Shark Skin', claiming it is a material that exhibits 'bio-mimicry'. Indeed.
Elsewhere, it's classic concept car stuff and it looks pretty damned good. We've already said it's long, but it's just 1.31m from floor-to-roof too, while it has a steeply raked windscreen, a high waistline, LED lights and 20-inch rims. All of this makes it dramatic to gaze upon, plus it is said to be a five-door saloon, which means access to the cabin via the wood-trimmed boot is possible. Oh, and those dark sills along the sides of the car? Basalt fibre, the less expensive version of carbon fibre.
Interior
The cabin of the Exalt looks like nothing else on Earth, exactly as a concept car's should. We all know this could never make it to production but wouldn't it be fantastic if it did one day? Here's hoping.
It's not all surrealist lines and materials though, as the keen-eyed among you may have noticed the i-Cockpit instrument cluster set-up that can be found in real-world Peugeots such as the 208 and 308, which also necessitates one of those tiny steering wheels for which Peugeot is now finding fame.
There's a blend of wool-based chiné mixed fabric, aged leather, more bare steel and ebony wood in here, to make it look über-luxurious. But to ensure that it's also on the cutting edge, two folding touchscreens (which control the on-board computer, navigation, the stereo system and the air conditioning, the latter featuring a Pure Blue anti-bacterial and anti-fungicidal purification function) emerge out of the dash when required.
There are also nine beautiful, programmable toggle switches, two to the left of the wheel and seven to the right (said to be arranged this way because the human brain is able to easily remember up to seven elements), one of which can be assigned to control the 'black light' system - that's ultraviolet light, in English. Peugeot says this is best used in crepuscular conditions, where it helps with picking out road markings.
Mechanicals
The Exalt has a HYbrid4 all-wheel drive system that makes a claimed maximum 340hp. There's a turbocharged 1.6-litre THP four-cylinder engine at the front, developed by Peugeot Sport, which makes 270hp and drives through a six-speed auto. The rear axle boasts a 50kW (around 68hp) electric motor for full EV or hybrid modes, so where it finds the extra few hp from for the total figure, we're not sure. However, they're respectable numbers nonetheless.
The Exalt weighs a fairly hefty 1,700kg and can switch instantly and seamlessly between pure electric, pure petrol or hybrid modes on the fly.
Anything else?
By using that bare steel and 'Shark Skin' exterior, the Exalt is said to have an aerodynamic drag figure of SCx 0.6. But as we can't measure the car's frontal area, and no one has bothered to give us the specs, we can't tell you what that is in the more familiar Cd measurement. Suffice it to say, the Exalt is very slippery.
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