First look: Prologue previews Pug's off-road plans

NOT content with unveiling a stunning new four-door hybrid luxury GT “coupe”, currently known only as the RC, Peugeot has revealed it will also use its home-turf bi-annual motor show in two weeks to debut what appears to be a production-ready compact hybrid crossover.

Cutely dubbed the “Prologue…”, the second petrol-electric show car to appear from Peugeot at Paris on October 2 is claimed to offer 147kW and “unexpected levels of performance”, yet produces the same miserly 109g/km of CO2 emissions as the RC hybrid sports car (which delivers a claimed 233kW).

The compact five-door crossover concept features trademark swept-back Peugeot headlights and a sweeping roofline with full-length glass roof, but new jewellery items include fresh triangular-shaped tail-lights, a gaping new cross-hatched grille and chunky SUV-style matt-black highlights in its wing mirrors, side rub strips and bumpers.

Further exaggerating the off-road theme are pronounced wheel-arch blisters on bodysides that seem unusually slabby for a Peugeot hatchback, and what looks like a tailgate that drops down under the rear hatch, splitting the rear bumper.

The French maker has revealed few other details to accompany these images, other than describing it as being “derived from the fusion of different worlds” - presumably in reference to its employment of petrol and electric power and, for the first time in a modern Peugeot, its on and off-road capability.

“Anticipating future trends, the “Prologue…” is an innovative combination of ideas at a number of different levels: its architecture, its style, its interior ambience, its modularity, its original high-tech equipment and also its new-generation hybrid technology,” said today’s Prologue press release.

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First look: Peugeot hybrid coupe concept