This month, we’re really getting into the 205 GTI, seeing as we had such a healthy contingent of them at the French Car Festival just gone. 

A drive of a 205 GTI between Albany and Denmark and back again remains one of this writer’s most fondly recalled pure driving experiences.

Dark grey, almost black, red and white were the most popular colours in Australia, although that might have come down to the manufacturer believing those were all Australians wanted or deserved. It’s a mindset that pervades and persists with importers to this day.

Very well concealed from Australians at the time was this limited edition GTI, a jewel-like little thing in a jewel-like colour, Fluorite Green. Here’s how it came into being.

Jean Todt, a well-known name in motorsport circles – now guardian of Michael Schumacher – wanted a Peugeot 205 GTI as a company car when he was the director of Peugeot Talbot Sport. All very well. But he wanted a special colour, so the factory whipped him up a green one. The agate-like colour caught the eye of the marketing department, and they made 1200 of them in 1990 for France, Germany and the Netherlands alone.

The cars were optioned with every conceivable extra available for the 205 at the time. All were produced in the one colour and, apart from the extra equipment, differed from other 205 GTIs with their Anthracite wheels, grey leather interior, white indicator lenses at the front and special Griffe badging on the C-pillar.

The Griffe name was taken from a very pretty 1985 Pininfarina proposal for a 205-based coupe with special wire coat-hanger people seated inside.