Peugeot has made some serious changes in its design Philosophy over the past few years. The brand has effectively gone from building boring and ugly MPVs to awesome looking SUVs and Crossovers. With the 5008 also completely overhauled into a crossover, Peugeot has practically phased out the MPV from its lineup. The new, second-gen 3008 is starting life as a 2017 model and will be available as a standard 3008, the 3008 GT Line, and the range-topping GT. But, there could be an even hotter, more performance-oriented 3008 GTi in the pipeline, but that all depends on whether or not the range-topping 3008 GT performs well on the market.

See, the 3008 GT, is powered by a 2.0-liter, BlueHDi, four-cylinder that delivers a fair 177 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. That’s not bad for a compact SUV, but today consumers seem to be more interested in performance than ever. It’s makes choosing between a range-topping model and mid-level model much more difficult as going with a lower-ranged vehicle often comes with a pretty serious sacrifice to performance. Marion David, the Project Manager for the 3008, to Auto Express. “GT is the fastest version for now, but if it does very well, then we will look at a higher-level version. People are moving down from more expensive cars, and they still want the good performance.”

And, he’s absolutely right. But, Peugeot just spent a lot of money revamping its lineup and reorganizing itself, so looking at the sales performance of the 3008 GT as a determining factor makes a lot of sense. Since the 2008 uses the EMP2 platform, which also supports the 308, Peugeot could very easily use some of the chassis and powertrain components from the 308 hatchback without digging too deep into its own pockets. That being the case, a 3008 GTi could use the same 1.6-liter, turbocharged, four-cylinder from the 308 GTi. It delivers as much as 270 horsepower and 243 pound-feet of torque, and would certainly give the 3008 a decisive edge should a GTi version enter production.

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Why it Matters

At the end of the day, the decision to watch how the 3008 GT performs is a smart move. If it doesn’t sell well, it’s likely that a GTi version would sell that well either. And, for a company that’s going through an extensive revamping process, wasting money just isn’t on the list of things to do. 270 horsepower would be a huge bump in power compared to what the 3008 GT offers now, and with that kind of power, Peugeot would be able to blow BMW’s X1 out of the water. Until then, let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that it performs well enough for us to see a GTi variant in the near future. Should that actually happen, it should also be joined by a hotter version of the 2008, which would also be a welcomed edition to the Peugeot family.

Read our full review of the Peugeot 3008 GT here.