If they work, they are the club which makes long par threes easy, escaping from most rough a doddle and as for those shorter par fives guarded by water, more are now in range for birdie taking than ever before by more and more levels of golfer.

Your car or club designer has their companies past to work with - what style and what performance, what engineering and what marketing (branding) came one, ten and even twenty years before.

That is however no excuse for a number of notably cars, and golf clubs, looking almost exactly the same.

The turn of the Millennium gave us lots of really boring looking cars, really boring, and when cavity backs (on golf clubs) were drilled, shaped and molded, the reverse happened as manufacturers tried to distinguish themselves by how topographic they could be, when their club faces started becoming as large as plates and misshapen. That wasn't mirrored by all those fleet style cars where price and performance mattered much more than looks - there were a lot of people driving round in ugly cars, usually salesmen who would only wear the finest dapperest suits to go with weekly haircuts and a daily bath of grooming products

Peugeot lead the car world in electric car development. That's the near future, especially for urban and short distance travel, but when you want or need to go a distance, present car technology is here for some time. The 'hype' and the 'style' of most recent cars has recently been about 4X4s so the new 308 gives you those looks and lots of ground clearance.

You can add to the 'trendiness' that no self respecting child can travel to school (even if its round the corner) in anything other than a 'People carrier'. The new 308 gives you that versatility in a much shorter wheelbase.

Where the storage capabilities of the 'must have' vehicle means pockets and trays in any part of car which once was just air, Peugeot have done all of the above in the front of the car, in a very classy way, then set about turning the boot into something that Ikea would love the look of and that Dr Who needs.

There is a split seat arrangement to allows you stick your fridge freezer in the back (if required) but its only a two golf club bags (and accessories) car without a bit of 'unpacking'.

What special driving related features are there? For a start, the basics are excellent - they have created a real cockpit for the driver, then included a 'heads up' pillar of Perspex into which is projected speed and stopping distances a la jet fighters.

You have a Grip Control System with five settings for all the different types of surface you will encounter in a drive through the Countryside (literally ? and any weather). Its there at a flick of a switch on the central console ? a retro doff of the designers cap to 'Overdrive' from the 60s?

Then there is Dynamic Roll Control system which flattens out hard cornering by really reducing body roll when you push the new 308 into a tighter bend. To finish with driver aides, you have a Hill Assist facility for the brake making steep inclines (stopping on them) easy to negotiate.

So what of the looks - what did Peugeot pull out of the 'dressing up' box for this car which is to be a lot to a wide range of possible drivers? Having seen the car (and driven it) 'in the flesh' it definitely has 'best sides', not of the kind that that says its looks are a mess but from one or two angles presentable, more the camera loves the car sometimes, then gets a bit 'moody' from others. Its happened to super models so the new 308 shouldn't feel stilted.

It has some 'homogeny' (nothing is completely new on any car) but the slight downward flare of the car's rear is attractive and different and its all important frontage, the bit of a car which means you don't have to remember your parking region in Merry Hill cark park, that's got oomph.

Its not a Morris Minor on steroids, nor is it the original mini after years in the gym. Think more a Lions paw pad given some styling by Sir Henry Moore, a big curved powerhouse with its claws set into the grill and Wolverine type mincers covering the headlights.

It's a very good drive. You don't know the new engineering and technology is doing its 'bit' - you just get on with it. Our test did include asking it to parade its wares to a number of ladies ? all were suitably and subtly impressed. The one other thing that was to be demonstrated was the incredible real pulling power the new 308 has (not just its lashes fluttering credibility).

Post this demo, Peugeot very kindly flung the gathered journalists into the air - in a glider. Attached to a 500 hp winch, its like cutting the grass standing on the back of your mower only to find it has started pumping jet fuel and is doing 50 mph as you hurtle towards the roses .... then you are heading upwards like Tinkerbell strapped to a rocket.

Once up in the air gliding is as green as it gets but unless you are a stinking rich bonus guzzling banker with half a mile of lawn in the middle of Rich on Thames, you won't be able to replicate the incredible demonstration put on by Peugeot, and if you have the wealth and the grass runway, you'd be trying with diamond studded eight foot wheeled super powered muscle back badged 8X8 that is capable of flying on its own.

Your everyday UK MP could try to shove the receipt for the price of the new 308 on their 'additional income allowances' (demonstrating value for money), an affordable saloon that just does a lot more than it says in the adverts. This was impressive to say the least, a car that made light of all the disadvantages put in front of it - the size of the glider, the conditions under foot (tyres), the engineering responsibility - all for under ? 22K.

The 308 didn't fling its glider into the air with the force of the winch but it wasn't pushed to its limits to enable a decent flight for the trepidatious pilot. All in all, the challenge for any golf club manufacturer is now to produce a club which does half as much as this car can in extreme conditions. Our suggestion is a club that has a the ability to carve away a gorse bush on the downswing, allowing decent contact with the ball when the thing is buried in a root.

Back to this rather good car. Prices start from ? 16K and whilst this isn't the cheapest option for a car which offers some of what the 308 can do, this is quality performance engineering and design without compromise and in around a year there will be a diesel and electric hybrid available. The present versions are low carbon rated but this special model will do just under 75mpg and will be rated under 100 for CO2 emissions.

Our verdict ? Grrrrrrrr (8 r's)

To view a video of the incredible pulling power of the new 308 CLICK HERE