Peugeot 207 CC Retractable Hard Top
Yay! After striking out yesterday on getting an affordable convertible for our tour of Tuscany I followed one of the recommendations from the Fodor’s message board and checked with Kemwel in the US. Kemwel appears to be a sister company to AutoEurope and they still had the Peugeot 207 CC listed online.
Their reservation line is 24×7 but when I called in last night I was told that the Peugeot is a specialty car and I’d have to call back during east coast business hours. I decided to ask all of my questions while I had the rep on the line. The person I spoke with was very friendly and answered all of my questions about cancellation policies, insurance, and prepayments.
according to them full insurance was mandatory for rentals in Italy and was already included in the posted rate for the car I was looking at. Furthermore the included insurance has no deductible, or “no excess” as their website states. The full amount of the rental would be charged to my credit card but I can cancel with a full refund with at least 48 hours notice prior to my pickup time.
Fast forward to this morning. I called the line again and spoke with another very friendly rep. He took down all of my information and double checked the rates and fees, noting that there is a 3.50 euro per day road tax not included in the quoted rate. He also noted that the car I was looking for was “by request” and that they would have to contact the provider to confirm the reservation.
2 hours later I received an email with the voucher for my “Economy,Convertible,Manual,With A/C Peugeot 207 Convertible or similar”. I’ve never rented a car via discount voucher before and have rarely rented with anyone other than Avis so I’m still a little nervous. Will they have the car I want when I get there (I’m told all agencies are notoriously bad for that), and what car will I get if they don’t? How much leeway is there on the “or similar” clause anyways? Oh, and it better be left hand drive because I’m not looking forward to driving stick on the wrong side! I’ll update after the trip.
About the Peugeot 207 CC
Now for the part that I’m really excited about. Before I set my heart on picking up a convertible (or coupe cabriolet in Europe, hence the CC) I needed to do some research on the car. My biggest concern was about luggage space as we plan to be hauling two medium sized suitcases. Searching the Peugeot website and some of the review sites offered little help as knowing that the trunk space goes from 350 litres with the top up to 204 litres with the top down didn’t actually tell me if our suitcases would fit.
Searching Google images for Peugeot 207 CC did turn up some pictures which seem to tell me that we might get one or both suitcases in the trunk, but that we could use the tiny backseats for luggage if needed. Backseat storage is a nice option to have as the last time I rented a convertible it was a Pontiac Soltice with no back seat. Any time that we wanted to haul our two small suitcases (it was only a weekend trip) we had to drive with the top up to maximize trunk space. We’ll just have to try to get to the hotel to drop off our suitcases before we do too much touring to avoid having them as obvious targets in the backseat.
Now I just have to cancel my Hertz reservation and keep my fingers crossed that my car is there when I get there.
Update: We ended up driving the car around Tuscany and loved it. Below are some pictures and thoughts about the car.
i just booked the peugot 207 cc similarly through autoeurope for my trip to tuscany the first two weeks of september. i also was unable to find any other affordable convertible through other car rental services. how did this all work out for you?
It worked out great. The car was fun to drive and I’m hoping to write a post just about the car. The only tricky bit about the roof is that you have to make sure that the safety net in the trunk engaged, otherwise the roof won’t go down. That took us awhile to figure out.
I’m way behind on posting about my trip, but I’ve just put a picture of our luggage in the Peugeot on Flickr. You can check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/averagetraveller/ in the Tuscany set.
great pics! you’re getting me super excited about my trip. wifey-to-be and i are going for our honeymoon.
one more question if you don’t mind, that picture of your suitcases in the trunk of the car … that’s with the top up right? were you able to fit anything in there with the top down?
Yes, that picture is with the top up. If you look at the back of the trunk there is a black bar that runs across the width of the trunk. There is a safety net rolled up in there that has to be pulled across the trunk and hooked on to latches near the tail lights before you can retract the roof. That marks the line where the retracted roof will sit. I’d say that you have 8 inches of height below that line. It’s hard to see in the picture, but our suitcases were about 1-2 inches too thick to store in there with the roof down.
yikes! maybe we should pack in duffel bags. thanks a lot for taking time to answer my questions. looking forward to reading more of your posts!!
Ryan, you are the man!!! I was confused about booking the 207 considering the size of our bags (we are just 2 of us but with big bags). Reading your post, I am sure we can manage. Amazing!!