ONE of the great plus marks that comes with the new Peugeot 807 people carrier is its powered sliding doors, which can be opened, closed or locked at the touch of a button by driver or passengers.

One of its problems is stacking the luggage of the seven or eight people it is designed to carry.

I, plus six other adults, experienced both during a recent test drive which took in four different countries.

People carriers, or MPVs, are growing in popularity and, for many, a step up and over the long-established estates. Some of the people carriers can look a bit van-like: no problems with that for the 807, which is a great improvement on the outgoing model.

Size-wise the wheelbase is the same as on the 806, but there is much more front and rear overhang, making it all-round roomier. Although it is a big machine, it is dead easy to handle with all the major controls light enough to prevent the driving experience from being intimidating.

Throughout the range there are four engine options, 2.0 and 2.2-litre versions of both a petrol and a diesel unit. The test car was the manual 2.2-litre HDi, producing 130bhp at 4,000rpm, with torque at 235lb.ft at 2,000rpm.

On well-made roads the 807 sails along, but my test route included roads in the United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium and France, and, well, variety certainly is the spice of life. There were no serious complaints from passengers, despite some quite serious rock 'n' roll which did not exactly conform to Peugeot's claim that the 807 "soaks up bumps in the surface as though they were not there."

There are four equipment levels, called LX, GLX (the test car), Executive and Executive SE. Prices start at £18,295 for the LX two-litre manual and reach £24,755 for the Executive SE 2.2 turbo diesel. The test car's on-the-road price was £22,495, but this included a number of optional extras.

Now, it is possible to specify an 807 with a number of seating options, and having done so you can then remove seats that you do not need, altering the luggage capacity from a claimed 2948 litres to tight squeeze. At its maximum there is seating for eight people, seated in three rows, and the centre and back rows can be adjusted forwards and backwards to account for the size of the passengers.

The test vehicle was a seven seater, two in the third row and three in the middle, with the usual two up front, and with some seat adjustment all on board were soon comfortable.

However, had there been an eighth, then it might have been a different story. As it was getting everyone's luggage behind the rear seats and the upward-lifting rear door (for a long weekend in Paris), was a struggle, although a safety net helped keep most of the luggage from falling out when the rear door was opened. However, the rear view mirror was by then pretty well useless, and small items had to fit around the feet of those behind the front seats.

When buying an MPV, seating has to be the main attraction, coupled with a necessary versatility especially when it comes to shifting seats out to make way for some really bulky packages. Interestingly, Peugeot does not boast at how easy it is to remove and replace seats when needs must. Good for them, because I had to do it when returning to the UK and it was a frustrating and infuriating struggle. The seat release mechanism was extremely stiff, and the seats themselves weigh a tonne.

But it is not all bad news with the 807. Thanks both to the very large glass area and the three sunroofs (one over each seat row) and light-coloured upholstery, the interior of the 807 is a bright and airy.

Also the general layout of the dashboard arrangement is attractive, though it does take time to get used to how far away you are from some of the dials. There are also, so Peugeot claims, 58 storage areas in the cabin, bottle and cup holders, magazine racks, odds and ends drawers, and in the centre console a refrigerated area for drinks cans.

There are lots of nice touches. Among them a fold-away "child-check" mirror in the car roof which gives the driver a truthful version of what is happening in the rear seats!

The electric sliding rear doors were superb, opening and closing with just a touch of the handle from outside, or by buttons on the inside. A couple of times they appeared to jam, but this seemed to occur only when the fact they are powered was forgotten. The doors (front as well as rear) can also be programmed to lock whenever the vehicle speed drops to six mph, a security measure to foil any car jacker or opportunist thief planning an assault when the vehicle is sitting still in traffic.

Updated: 10:41 Friday, April 25, 2003