Peugeot has revived the RCZ as a striking sports coupé concept to preview its new design language - and could bring it to showrooms in the coming years.
Headlining Peugeot’s stand at the Paris motor show, the RCZ concept is a bold, futuristic showcase of how the French brand will evolve its design language for its next generation of cars - beginning with the new 208 supermini next year.
It's the latest in a long line of radical, future-looking Peugeot concepts that give clues to future models - but unlike the 2017 Instinct, 2018 E-Legend and 2023 Inception, the RCZ stands a real chance of being offered to customers.
The EV is unmistakably conceptual in its design, both in terms of its exterior design and its radical cockpit arrangement, but it has been designed to be as realistic as possible, with a view to potentially being greenlit for production if there's enough customer demand.
Measuring 4.65m long, 1.35m high and 1.94m wide, the RCZ is much smaller than the similarly conceived but much more outlandish Inception and has a footprint roughly comparable to today’s BMW 4 Series coupé.
Like the BMW, it has been designed as a true four-seater, with generous leg and head room in the rear, departing from its 2009 namesake, which was definitively a 2+2, with its rear bench providing no meaningful accommodation for passengers.
Chief designer Matthias Hossann said that practicality and usability were priorities for his team when designing the new RCZ, to maximise the likelihood of being able to eventually adapt it for production.
He said the concept was purposefully designed to not be "super-futuristic" and preview a car that could hypothetically be launched in "20 years' time".
"This was an important part of my brief. I asked my team to make it look quite realistic in terms of proportion and size, in order to make this car more approachable. It's not just designing a UFO or something which is highly futuristic."
Peugeot could take on 4 Series
The retro-inspired E-Legend – another concept that Hossann worked on – was similarly realistic in its shape and packaging but was never evolved beyond the concept stage.
"This is a concept car, but as a designer, we hope we have an opportunity to bring this to life. It depends on market demands," Hossann explained.
He cited the dearth of similar models on sale today as a factor which could boost its commercial viability: "I'm quite optimistic by nature. If you're looking for a four-seater coupé from an upper mainstream brand, you have almost nothing. So we believe there is still room for this kind of market.
"That's why we designed it with four seats, because if we designed a two-seater it could be beautiful, but it's much more restrictive in terms of usage. Peugeot is an upper-mainstream brand, so that's why it's quite important to have the row two. It could be the perfect expression of having a beautiful car on a daily basis - a functional car."
Hossann noted that the advent of modular, flat-floored EV architectures – such as that which Peugeot parent Stellantis is rolling out across all its marques – help to strengthen the case for lower-volume models like coupés, since they can share their underpinnings and drivetrains with much more popular models so are less costly to develop.
He said that while the RCZ is "not based on a specific [Stellantis] STLA platform", the designers "worked to make it realistic" by shaping and packaging it around conventional EV hard points.
Any production version would be likely to use a derivative of the new STLA One platform that will underpin the next-generation e-208 and e-308 hatchbacks.
But one crucial bespoke element of the RCZ's architecture would be the inclusion of 'foot garages' cut into the underfloor battery pack. These keep occupants close to the floor, meaning the roofline can be as low as that of an ICE coupé. Indeed, the RCZ is the same height as the Porsche Taycan, which employs the same arrangement.
Peugeot has given no hint at hypothetical power figures, performance capability or range potential for the RCZ, but Hossann suggested the aim was to create "more a GT coupé" than an outright sports car.
Clues to the future
Whether or not it finds its way into customers' hands, the RCZ's first priority is to highlight the cues that will define Peugeot's new design language, which Hossann describes as 'Feline Future'.
Set to make its debut on the next e-208 in 2027, this new look has been conceived to emphasise Peugeot’s distinct attributes while subtly channelling its heritage and injecting more “emotion” into the line-up.
"Feline Future is about elegance, precision, and contained power," Hossann explained, citing the importance of making Peugeot stand out in an increasingly crowded and homogenous marketplace.
"In a world that has more and more product and everything tends to look the same, we keep this tension and dynamic feeling when we design a Peugeot."
While the RCZ is a striking, sharp-angled interpretation of this new ethos, he said that Peugeot is “never about being aggressive” but rather expressing “confidence” through “precision and tension”.
Chiefly, Hossann said: "We need to bring back Peugeot to more emotion.”
That’s why the brand chose to preview its new era with a sports coupé and resurrect the RCZ name, he explained, because “for Peugeot, this was probably the last really emotional car".
He also pointed to the brand's heritage in elegant two-doors before that, dating back to the early 1960s, saying: "It's important for us because Peugeot was well-known for beautiful coupés.”
While the RCZ is dramatically different in form and conception to the first production models of Peugeot's new era (the e-208 and e-308 are set to be followed by several crossovers), the RCZ gives strong hints as to their defining visual features.
Chief among these is a new-look light signature that swaps the vertical 'triple claw' motif of the current models for three thin LED strips that wrap around each end of the car - nodding to the slatted grilles that featured on popular past models like the 205 and 405.
"We are still keeping the three-claw signature but in a horizontal way, which is a nod to our heritage – in the 1980s we used to have the horizontal grid – but projecting it into something really futuristic, really innovative," Hossann explained.
Radical interior isn't fantasy
The RCZ introduces a radical new interior arrangement that is essentially a futuristic interpretation of Peugeot's i-Cockpit design.
Departing completely from today's production cars, it features a dramatic, driver-centric arrangement with low-slung sports seats and an unusual, straight-edged 'Hypersquare' steering wheel, which signals the inclusion of Peugeot's new steer-by-wire technology, as introduced by last year's Polygon concept.
Notably, the RCZ doesn't feature any traditional screens, with its digital systems instead displayed and managed through transparent panels on the dashboard.
Hossann said this radical arrangement was part of a move to enliven future cockpits while minimising distractions and keeping the driver's eyes on the road.
"As designers, we're not dreaming of designing black surfaces in front of you or putting a metre square of screen everywhere," he said.
"We believe that this technology is interesting because you can adapt, based on your usage, whether you want to have some information or not - and be more surrounded by materials, not having black screens everywhere."
While the panels are conceptual for now, Peugeot says it's working with suppliers to develop the technology for use in production cars. "This is not just a design dream or fancy," Hossann said.
The RCZ also features a healthy smattering of physical controls throughout its cabin, and Hossann said Peugeot aims for its future models to strike a balance between traditional buttons, touchscreens and voice assistants.
"I know there is this debate right now of bringing back some physical buttons. Maybe it went too far sometimes. For me, it's always a question of balance and of habits, because today we are used to having all this digital [functionality], so the context is not the same today as the one we had five or 10 years ago."
Peugeot snubs engine simulation
Peugeot is considering how to amp up the engagement factor in future sporting EVs – including a potential production version of the RCZ – but is unlikely to follow Hyundai and Mercedes in giving them a fake exhaust note and fake gearbox.
"I think sometimes it's good to emphasise the new electric experience with some specific sounds, but it's a question of balance," said Hossann. "We need to make sure it doesn't look too fake in terms of experience.
"I think driving an electric sports car is quite exciting too, so it's about how we can elevate this driving experience without going into something which looks fake."