Taxi! I want to ride in this one…
Wouter Bregman posted this at the Cohort, stating that this 1963 Peugeot 404 is the oldest taxi in Berlin. I certainly don’t doubt that, and it’s a treat to see it. It’s virtually identical to one that we rode in during our visit to Vienna in 1969. I can still hear the clatter and thrum of the Indenor 1.9 L diesel four, which had all of 63 hp. But that was more than the Mercedes 200/220 at the time, and the Peugeot was a good bit lighter.
Update: this is a gas engined 404, bought by the current owner from Souther France and then prepped (rustproofing, etc.0 to be his full-time taxi. He’s added over 100,000 miles since he put it in service in 2011, and maintenance and upkeep costs have been very low. It just confirms what rugged cars these are.
And of course it looks almost identical to my ’68 404. My in-depth CC on the 404 is here
There is something about these 404’s I can’t quite put my finger on, but they really appeal to me. Just unpretentious sharp style and, a mix of from what I gather, being jaunty fun while still comforting like your favorite aunt. That’s not even considering the coupe or cabriolet…
63 + 67 I love them
Really? In affluent Germany?
I am surprised for many reasons:
1. My sense that German cab riders would want nice cabs. Unless this old 404 interior is restored every 10 years, I think it would be kinda rough
2. Emissions. In “green” Germany, would they tolerate such noxious old car?
But I am impressed. These cars were sturdy, and recall a bygone era when cars reflected the preferences of their nation of origin and manufacturer.
As a kid in Greece, Peugeots were by far my favorite French car. I didn’t appreciate the DS engineering then, and it looked too weird to me. But I liked the 404 and 504, and even the 403 looked decent. Renaults and the other Citroens looked cheap, weird or both.
I’m surprised in that (so I’ve read) Germany is a country with very strict vehicle regulation, yet a 55+ year old car can still serve as a taxi. Even in seemingly carefree Las Vegas there are age and mileage restrictions on cabs.
I have lived in Germany and I’m surprised as well. AfaIk Berlin even has a restriction zone (“green zone”) where Diesels are disallowed. But I can see an H (=historic) on the number plate, so maybe this is not a daily driver Taxi. Possibly for special occasions only.
Amazing. I doubted this was a real taxi, so I did some digging, and yes, it is indeed real (not a movie prop or some other kind of promotion). This article (in German) gives the car’s history:
https://www.welt.de/motor/fahrberichte-tests/oldtimer/article162744823/Dieser-Peugeot-404-ist-Berlins-aeltestes-Taxi.html
The current driver is a classic car enthusiast who purposefully sought out an older car for his taxi. He’s been driving it as a Berlin taxi since 2011. Rather amazing. I’m surprised, though, that he hadn’t retrofitted seat belts into the car.
I also like the personalized license plate (I presume it’s personalized) with the number 404 in there. Nice touch.
Thanks. I should have Googled it myself. It’s quite a story too. He bought it from Southern France in 2011 and has been driving it year-round full time since then, and put on 170,000 km ( a bit over 100k miles).
And apparently it’s a gas engine, not a diesel. Impressive.
So how many miles does it have on the clock now?
It didn’t say.
There are several Packards a Buick Austin 16 etc fully registered and biannually certified as taxis plying the tourist trade in Napier New Zealand, they dont do cab rank duty though as this Peugeot appears to do,
I passed a 404 dropsider pickup last week towing a trailer loaded up with lawn care gear out on highway 50 so theres one more tidy working Peugeot 404 left on the planet, good to see.
Diesels had no ventilation slots in their wheels, this one should also have orange indicator lenses as Dad’s Diesel was bought from a Shell engineer who was based in Trier Germany and he had to move to the US.
Dad bought the car and drove it for an unbelieveble 350000 kilometers before it was exported to Africa.
This has the early over riders on the front bumper and the old single indicatoe lenses, definately pre 1965.
I vividly remember a Tatort episode (german police TV series) in black & white where a cabby in Hamburg driving a 404 radio cab follows the bankrobbers while passing on information to ze polizei!
The oldest taxi in my town is an 80s FSO 1300/1500, which I still keep seeing at the taxi parkings.
Not my photo, but it’s that car – https://scontent.fwaw7-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/1403282_649462891761056_260750683_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=04L98gsox7YAX-ZiA3u&_nc_ht=scontent.fwaw7-1.fna&_nc_tp=12&oh=716fcd804e43bcc00a489d3559272ba6&oe=5E953249
Taxi! Stop! This is the ultimate CC-Taxi!
According to this article, it’s not a Diesel
https://www.motor-talk.de/news/fuers-oldie-taxi-braucht-man-koerperspannung-t5946761.html
But that doesn’t mean it has more power! (65HP).
The fact that it’s a “benziner” and has an historic plate allows it to be within Berlin’s green zone. But I’m also amazed that Berlin allows such old cars to become taxicabs at all. And I’m quite happy they do!
63 HP seems like rather a high number for an old 1.9 liter diesel. 65 HP seems like really low number for a 1.6 liter gas engine.
The correct number for the early 404 (1960-1964) is 72 hp. It went up to 76 in 1965 with the 5 bearing engine. And in 1967, bigger valves increased that to 80 hp.
The fuel injected version had 85 hp, than 96.
Keep in mind these are European DIN PS, very close to SAE net numbers, not gross. Meaning, real as installed hp.
My 80 hp ’68 would roll along quite happily at 80+ mph, as these engines are exceptionally smooth. The FI version would do 100 mph.
And yes, the 1.9 diesel had 63 hp. It was quite a bit bigger than the 1.6 L gas engine, and was a totally different design, a clean-sheet diesel, not a converted gas engine.
80+? You had no respect, sir.
I had a three bearing and then a five, and both had a sublime sweet spot of 70. Quiet, benign, relaxed, very much a steady ship even in troubled waters. Sure, the car could take more – I got the ’63 to 93mph shortly before being booked, luckily not at that – but at 70 or so, all was as intended. And so much nicer than many cars twenty or more years newer than it.
The mechanical strain beyond 70 was a bother to the ears rather than the motor, as the temp and oil gauges showed no interest in altering as one went faster, but the whole superb oneness that so characterized the car otherwise was fractured by the racket.
Ofcourse, YMMV. As YCD (yours clearly did).
(to CJin SD) A 7.6:1 compression ratio isn’t ever going to make big numbers out of 98 cubic inches, even with an alloy crossflow (pushrod) head. Also, the carb was the size of a malnourished mouse, and even that had to feed a family of small valves through the head castings and not some flash manifold.
I can personally attest that the full 63 bhp was available only to those prepared to rev hard, and often.
The engines can be tuned to make really good power, but the very conservative Peugeot wanted durability before anything else.
I’m surprised the historic plate/working taxi combination is allowed. Most jurisdictions that offer special vintage-car registrations place use restrictions in exchange for the break on annual fees/inspections.
There’s more photos of the 404 including photos of coupe, convertible and even a pick-up/bakkie/ute versions posted on this French site. https://www.carjager.com/article/peugeot-404-prudence-et-robustesse-pour-contrer-la-ds
I guess Columbo might like the 404 as well beside the 403. 😉
Of their time and quite some after, Peugeot has not made a better car. They led in radial tyre compliance, in damped control of a very pliant ride, in steering, in solidity, silence and perceived quality. (That they turned out to be unkillable came later).The reviews gave then enormous respect across their time.
Peugeot was a 100 y.o family-owned company at this time, governed by rectitude, and the 404 reflects this. They don’t have an OHC, or whizzo independent rears, or discs (for much of their life), yet are the deeply-done quality car, the Lancia of the French, without the highly-strung troubles.
They’re slow, especially now, but also in their day. Yet the total experience of piloting one is unmatched for cars of then. Beyond comfortable, tight-handling, unfussed. Ordinary elements distilled by refinement into excellence.
They have a killer fault that this old Berliner has escaped. The excellent face-level vents have a woefully-inadequate drainage beneath, meaning frequent wet knees and an eternally damp front floor, then subframe, meaning death by iron oxide of most.
Power to this owner. He’ll help spread the word that this prosaic-looking old design should really live amongst the auto greats.
Drainage of those is very easy! You clean out the tubes in the plenum chamber in front of the windscreen, they go out to inside the front mudguards/wings. As long as those tubes are clear, the issue you mention does not exist!
Amazing to see this old girl still going strong. It always warms my heart to see older cars like this on the road and looking good. Presumably this only does short haul jobs around the city and not long distance routes?
There are some interesting comments here. The 404, in my opinion was among the best cars ever made, by any manufacturer. One of the magazines at the time said it was “One of the world’s seven best cars”. By the comparison of the time they were not slow, 90 mph was far from being difficult. Strong, certainly, check out East African Safari results. Comfortable, without any doubt, by any standard of comparison. The 404 was a preferred taxi in many places, in Rotorua (NZ) there were several, most with over 250 000 miles on the petrol engines. Replacing an engine if needed was a mornings casual work, I have done it myself, and I know that collectively the taxi drivers owned one spare, whoever needed it used it, had their own repaired and that one went in the pool for the next need.