As many of you know, I have a very special place in my heart for Peugeot. I owned no less than six 404s, which was a deep immersion into one of the most legendary of the so many X0X series by the storied French maker. We’ve covered many of their cars in the past, so it’s time to trot them all out again, along with new ones.
Santa Monica, 1978
Note that I added the (Not Week) to the title because I know that a 100% Peugeot Week would undoubtedly tax the attention spans of some of our readers. So were going to do Peugeot Fest a bit different: one post per day, at 10AM (PDT), in chronological order of their first year of build. Which means Peugeot Fest may go on for a while, but if you stay with us, you’ll undoubtedly end up with a deeper appreciation of one of the most storied firms in automotive history.
I’ll be starting with a condensed history of the firm tomorrow before our first CC’s commence, mostly post war cars except for one or two. For our contributors, you’ll have to be fluid in terms of scheduling, as it’s going to be difficult to know just when to schedule certain cars much in advance, as we’re going strictly chronological. I can always push things off as needed. It”l be interesting to see how long Peugeot Fest will end up. All of July? Maybe. We’ve got a mighty big load of material to haul out of the archives.
That’s a great picture of you and I see you have the original universal mechanic’s tool in your right hand before the widespread use of that more recent important tool, the little plastic rectangle with the strip on the back.
Looking forward to getting my French on, vive les Peugeots!
I can’t see either of those two with a hammer?
About that second picture – finally, a French car with more than three lugs holding the wheels on. 🙂
You all know that I am not Mr. EuroCar here, but if I were going to own a French car (at least one not named Panhard), it would be a Peugeot.
My biggest challenge this week will be in the comments, and the way I need to constantly confirm the correct spelling of the car’s name (which gives me trouble every time.)
Still seven letters and starting with a P. I have a soft spot for Panhards too.
Old films set in urban areas are good for car-watching, such as what we found on Netflix:
http://www.criterion.com/films/786-the-bakery-girl-of-monceau
The main character is a masher & a litterbug, but never mind: the 1963 street scenes are rich with old Peugeots, Renaults, & Cits, and there’s even a Panhard & Chevy.
Le Scandal: the boulangerie is selling factory-baked cookies!
_LOVE_ the first photo with you holding a Harley-Davidson Carburetor wrench so casually .
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Pugs are TERRIFIC cars ! Pops had a ’59 Sedan , it was great until the salt got it .
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I never saw one of those pickups in the flesh , I imagine they’re sturdy and reliable plus easy to drive .
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How did they manage to load TWO Camels ?! .
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-Nate
There was a nice 404 pickup parked roadside on nearby Napier Hill there are shots on the cohort it had a diesel engine swapped in some school kid slammed into it with a Corolla and totalled it the owner a local Peugeotphile now runs a Citroen ZX diesel turbo hatch as his daily drive
I promise not to wail about what a nightmare my 1978 504 was. Longtime readers have already seen my trail of tears. End of rant. Enjoy.
I had a 74 that I loved AND hated. I feel your pain.
The object of my frustration in 1992 or so.
A very similar white fiveofour like yours was sold for two million usdollars about ten years ago.great looking cars.
Looking forward to Peugeot Fest. Apparently the camels are too, just look at their happy expressions!
Camels get better fuel mileage, but as that must be a Mideast country, who cares?
It must take some expert wrangling to maneuver those beasts in back. Adult camels can weigh in excess of 1000lbs, so I suppose the GVW rating was exceeded.
“The camel has a single hump; The dromedary, two; Or else the other way around. I’m never sure. Are you?” – Ogden Nash
They put alot more weight on trucks than recommended.here in iran a nissan pickup is produced called saipa.factory calls it one ton truck but most people put more than five metric tons of weight on it and with four cyl called Z24 engine it is a big challenge for the poor truck to go up hills.
Looking forward to it Paul. I like quirky weird cars, even if I wouldn’t trust them to get me to the corner 7-11
Any stereotypical comments about French cars being universally “fragile” or “untrustworthy” inevitably reflect only the ignorance of the commenter, and may not be tolerated, as I’ve read more than one lifetime’s worth of them already. Sorry, but you obviously don’t have any real experience with Peugeots, so you’re just not qualified to make such sweeping statements.
+1
Clarkson at his best:
I must admit I possessed such ignorance Paul – although I termed it ‘suspicion’, and limited it to French cars from the 1980s onwards.
But at the beginning of 2015 I ended up with a 2006 Peugeot 307 SW wagon. My partner bought it in 2010ish (before we met) with 30,000km on it. I now drive it daily for my work commute and it had its 170,000km service Monday this week. It’s been 100% reliable – the sole expensive repair was NZ$750 to replace the a/c radiator which had disintegrated. We don’t baby it either, it’s used as the work car, the family car, the weekend car, the touring car (which it’s superb at thanks to the panoramic glass roof), and we often tow heavy trailers behind it. It’s never once let us down – vive la Peugeot!
Mate of mine never liked them until I got him to drive me around in my Xsara when I lost my license, now he wont buy anything else hes had a $1000 406 turbo diesel sedan, a $500 406 TD sedan, currently in a $362 Citroen Xantia all cheap dungas from trademe and all great to ride in.
Admittedly no first-hand experience with other French cars, but I think the reputation for fragility has some basis in fact. Peugeots are the exception to the fragile-French-car stereotype. I owned 3 Peugeot 504’s in the ’90s.
Hmm, I’m on vacation next week, going to attempt to cross Algonquin Park diagonally by canoe.
So this pretty much looks like perfect timing for me 🙂 You guys just carry on, hopefully I’ll be back in time for camel week.
I’ve transplanted the Supple Seats from a 505, three times, into Japanese mini-pick up trucks of the 1980’s and 1990’s.
These seats made for a TREMENDOUS increase in ride quality.
A 1980’s Peugeot 505 seat may be the most comfortable car seat I’ve ever sat in. The only thing that comes close is another Peugeot.
There’s something about those French ads….
Looking forward to this already, and hoping to add a couple of entries in some form!
Had two 404s. Bought the first one from Carrington Co., big IH dealer in the Northwest, from their Anchorage location. Car had been advertised at the current Blue Book price of $800, which I paid. The next day they called me to say they had just gotten the new 1966 BB, and the price had dropped to $750, so could I come in and get my $50 refund? And as if that weren’t enough, a day or two later I was stuck in stop-and-go traffic on a long uphill, and when I let out the clutch the U-joint broke. So I called Carrington again, and they said, “Where is it?” Their wrecker came out and hauled it off, and the next day they called me to come pick it up. No charge, all fixed.
Drove that car happily for well over a year, great for everything from errands to long day-trips through the mountains, until my wife was sitting in it, waiting to turn left into our street, when a girl with a brand-new license and her daddy’s Chevy stuffed it into the Peugeot’s trunk. Poor thing looked like a cat in heat; it was driveable, though the shifter would let you do R-2-4 or 1-3 on the move. To change between the upper and lower plane took both hands. So the insurance company totaled the car … several months later we were up in Palmer, and saw it parked at a feed store. Some old Matanuska Valley farmer had just taken off the trunk lid and was using it as his pickup truck.
404 #2 was not really mine; I was driving it around what was not yet Silicon Valley sort of on approval from the owner, who never drove it. And then one night I was coming home from Berkeley and there was a bang and some clatter, and then we were running on three. A piston had broken at one of the upper ring grooves. I managed to creep home, and that was that.
I’ve driven a couple of sad 403s and ridden in one very sharp one. I would like to find a sharp one …
Sounds like Carrington Co was the dealer the rest of us could only dream about. Too bad more of them aren’t that way. I suspect they had a very loyal customer base.
Looking forward to this series, Paul. Below is the only Peugeot I have ever owned. Brownie points to whoever can tell it’s FULL name. 😀
Off hand no but my local Peugeot Citroen dealer has a framed poster of this car about two metres long on the wall in the parts section, I see it when I go there to get Xsara specific airfilters twice a year and forget to photograph it, Ford learned how to make the Sunliner from this
Kinda, sorta. Sunliner was the ragtop. Skyliner was the retractable hardtop, 😀
Oops sorry wrong folding top.
No worries, Bryce.
402 Décapotable.
402 Eclipse
Many decades later Mercedes Benz claimed to be the first with a metal convertible roof,but it was this Peugeot.
The patent was held by Georges Paulin and the coachbuilder Pourtout, who licensed it to Peugeot. The 402 was the 1st factory-made tin-top convertible, but Pourtout-bodied cars were made before that on several chassis, the first being a Panhard. There was also a 4-door retractable metal top made by Pourtout on a Hotchkiss chassis.
But hey, this is all about Peugeot, so let’s stick to those. Here is the Pourtout tin top on the the previous top of the line Pug, the 601.
Retracs have an odd history, the Pourtout (and licensed factory Peugeot) cars in the ’30s, but apparently nothing outside France and then nothing at all until the Ford Skyliners and then another long drought until the early-mid ’00s when there was a blast of them that all lasted one product cycle unless you count the Miata RF.
Oh, them Teutons be that way sometimes. 😉
Thanx for playing along, guys, and thanx Tatra 87. Only saw your post after I wrote this. The complete model description is Peugeot 402 BL Eclipse Phalene Décapotable. Ouch. I think I sprained my tongue saying that.
A short description of it’s genesis ~ “In 1934, using a Peugeot 601 chassis, Parisian dentist Georges Paulin designed and patented a retractable hard top, the first such fully-retractable, automatic system. Paulin, whose business was crowns and fillings but whose passion was automobiles, did the first one for coachbuilder Marcel Pourtout. Peugeot considered its hydro-mechanical retracting mechanism too complicated and declined to become involved so Paulin and Pourtout bought a number of bare chassis and began producing them. The car was extremely well received and was followed by several other examples using larger Peugeot chassis. In 1935 Paulin sold his patent to Peugeot and small runs on 402 chassis, using a simple mechanical retraction system, were made until World War II. The new mechanism was so brilliantly designed that it could be lowered or erected by one person.”
By the way, in case it isn’t obvious, my 402 is actually a fine diecast 1/18 scale model done by Norev. The 1:1 is WAY to rare and expensive for me to afford.
P.S. Pic of the aforementioned 1934 Peugeot is attached.
I had an inkling that your Eclipse might be more of a fancy than the actual thing. They are very rare indeed!
The 601 streamliner Pourtout made in ’35 was also fitted with that top. Pretty advanced styling, full pontoon. With the 402 Andreau, probably the most interesting Peugeot of the 1930s.
Just stunning! That one is new to me!
This is going to be a great reason to read posts both new and old about Peugeots. Frankly, I had hoped to get Citroen and Peugeot overload at the Lane a few weeks ago; well, one of those two were plentiful!
Scanning my memory banks, I do remember once seeing a Peugeot on the road. It had to be an early to mid-1980s model that had been rear-ended in a work zone. What a way for it to imprint itself on my memory. That is the sole Peugeot I’ve seen.
Compared to the Citroens and Panhards, Peugeots are downright conventional and normal.
Citroens have been built on Peugeot floorpans since the early 80s the difference is skin deep and hydro pnuematics.
This is going to be epic. Bring it.
Lived down the street from the dealer in Hastings-on-Hudson, wanted a 504 wagon in the worst way, but there was a regular parade of 50x’s coming in for service. My tin-can Toyota wagons just kept running, even with heavy use in urban traffic, a 504 under that duress probably would have broken me.
Later drove a 505 wagon partway across the US, what a lovely effortless car! Short enough exposure that no repairs were needed.
The forklift at work is a Korean-built Caterpillar with a Peugeot XN4P gas engine in it. It’s certainly different – a wet liner engine with the liners freestanding in the block, shimmed and sealed on the bottom. It runs well, given the hours on it.
Awesome! I had a 505 turbodiesel that I absolutely loved. Will someone bring them back to North America please.
My daily driver, and only car is a 1985 505 Turbodiesel wagon. Other than spotty parts supply, it is at least as good as the w123 diesel I used to own, but rides better. With an indicated 200k on the odometer(although based on service records I think the odo was inoperable for some time), it uses very little oil. Even my wife likes it, something that has rarely been the case with my vintage vehicles.
Former Peugeot 205 Roland Garros owner here 🙂
Trivia: Roland Garros used the 1st machine gun able to fire through the propeller, made possible with deflector plates developed by Morane-Saulnier. Les Boche were already developing the interrupter gear, which began the Fokker Scourge.
Garros later escaped German captivity & gained one or two more victories with his SPAD but was KIA before he could become an ace.