Peugeot Exalt, now with added scooter

A new version of the Peugeot's Exalt concept that caused internet swooning will finally make its debut at next month's Paris motor show. Although it's received a few updates before meeting its home crowd.

There's a new livery and a different interior finish to the version we saw a few months ago in Beijing. An ebony wood interior has been replaced inside by recycled ‘newspaper wood', made from crushed up business papers (picked for the pink hue they bring, and a familiar sight to BMW i3 owners). Outside, the rust-red sharkskin (yes, sharkskin) has been replaced with a subtler, grey tone. It's still sharkskin. OK, synthetic "sharkskin". 

Under the bonnet things remain more or less the same. The centrepiece of the Exalt is Peugeot's new Hybrid4 powertrain, which combines a 1.6-litre THP 270bhp petrol engine (nabbed from the Peugeot RCZ R) with a 70bhp electric motor. The Exalt is unlikely to be a warp-speed racer though, as it weighs 1,700kg.

However, more power resides in the Exalt thanks to a novel piece of standard equipment. A rather handy ‘HYbrid-kick Concept' electric scooter sits in a special compartment under the tailgate, handily without taking up any of the boot capacity. Sounds naff, but actually pretty useful for getting about central London having parked the car itself away from the soul-destroying traffic and exorbitant parking fees.

From the pictures we've seen, the Exalt looks great. Plus, obviously, its made of (synthetic) sharkskin. But will Peugeot actually put it into production?

Because Peugeot has something of a history of producing terrific concepts that never make it outside a motor show. The wild HX1 people carrier springs to mind, as does the SxC, which Peugeot aimed at the burgeoning Chinese car market. We even got to drive the startling looking Onyx concept in 2012. While some of the design features of the supercar concept have been passed on to the Exalt, it's a crying shame (albeit an inevitable one) that the Onyx itself never went into production.

Could this finally become a reality?