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By admin, September 3, 2010 5:36 am

The Peugeot 404 was a D-segment (large family car classification) produced between nineteen sixty and nineteen seventy five. Manufactured by the French based car makers Peugeot, the 404 was designed by the Italian automobile designers Pininfarina. The car was produced in Europe until nineteen seventy eight, with the 404 still produced in Kaduna (Nigeria) until nineteen eighty nine under license. One point eight million 404s were produced in France, whilst a further two point eight cars were manufactured under license for the developing markets where the car proved very successful.

The initial 404 line up included the five door estate, four door sedan and two door pickup body styles, with two door convertible and coupe variations added to the line up within two years of production. Available with both petrol and diesel engines, the petrol engine had a capacity of one point six litre, and the diesel one point nine. Fitted with a four speed manual transmission, the 404 also offered a three speed automatic transmission as an additional option. The car proved very popular as taxis due to its value, reliability and looks.

The extremely popular car magazine “Autocar” ran road tests for the Diesel Peugeot 404 in nineteen sixty five. The parameters measured included top speed, acceleration and fuel consumption. The diesel car reached eighty one miles per hour, and could accelerate to sixty miles per hour in twenty five seconds. It could travel just over thirty two miles per gallon of fuel. The petrol fuelled car was also tested, and was notably faster than the diesel, and shared the same fuel consumption.

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By admin, June 18, 2010 5:36 am

The Peugeot 206 was created in the early 1990’s with the replacement of the preceding 205 model. Peugeot changed their model under the idea that super mini cars were no longer profitable, therefore a change was in order. The Peugeot 206 did not immediately follow the 205 as the Peugeot 106, 306 and 309 models to capture different levels of sales from prospective customers. The Peugeot 106 was rivaling the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Polo with the 306 and 309 models taking the mid and top end sales from the discontinuation of the 205. Because of this, many Peugeot enthusiasts believe the 206 should have been named the 207. The 206, although created early was not released until 1998.

The Peugeot moniker indicates that the 206 immediately followed the 205, but this is not true as other models were released before the 206. The eventual successor, the 207, was finally launched n 2006, but Peugeot recently announced that the 206 will stay in production until the year 2010. The 206 is the best selling Peugeot of all time but the end of the model in the upcoming years will end the ‘06′ generation of Peugeot cars in almost 20 years. The 206 was initially produced in France and England but production switched to Slovakia. The closure of the British plant matched with the closure of the Ryton plant, which Peugeot took over when Peugeot bought Chrysler’s European division in 1979.

The Peugeot 306 replaced the 309. The 306 is very similar to the Citroen ZX, which was released to the public two years before the 306 model. Both cars used the same structure and floorplan. The 205 was styled after the Pininfarina styling and has been a better seller. In the 1974 oil crisis, Citroen went bankrupt and Peugeot took over Citroen. This led to the similarities and identical cars produced by both manufacturers.

The 306 Phase 1 came to the market in March of 1993 as a 3 and 5 door hatchback with three different models being offered. The five door was more of a station wagon and was dubbed the “sw” for station wagon. Although not nearly as stylish as the 205, the 306 offered many practical uses in the vehicle. The sw estate model was not a hatchback station wagon, but a sedan with luxurious European styling to accompany the Peugeot racing spirit.

The engines used in the Peugeot cars were offered both in a gasoline and a diesel model. The gasoline engines were four cylinder units, which gained their outstanding reputation from being the power plant in the ever popular Peugeot 205 model. The idea for the Peugeot engines was to have a fair trade off between performance and excellent fuel economy. Three larger capacity engines were available but were restricted to automatic and performance models.

The diesel engines in Peugeot came with an excellent reputation and were largely available in turbo charged models. The original engine displacement for the diesel engines came in a 1.8 liter, but was soon upgraded to a 1.9 liter. The turbocharged Peugeot diesel became an excellent fitting engine to match the 306 as the performance matched similarly sized gasoline cars. The considerable extra weight was overcome by the turbocharged performance.

The Author writes articles on Peugeot Cars. More articles written by the author related to Peugeot Dealer, Peugeot 206 and Peugeot 207 which can be found in the web.