(first posted 6.7/2016) A pre-war Peugeot is a rare sight, even in France, and almost exclusively at car shows. But French car shows can be different, and this one certainly was. It was billed as a classic car show, linked to a village festival, in a small (I mean very small) village, in southwest France.
Quality, not quantity, was the key. There were not many cars but the cars that were there were universally of CC appeal. A Peugeot 403, a 404, an Alpine A310, a Renault 8 and an 8 Gordini, a Porsche 911, and this quite delectable Peugeot 302.
The Peugeot 302 was a derivative of the 402 that Paul wrote about yesterday, varying from the 42 Legere (lightweight) by having a smaller, 1758cc straight 4 cylinder, 45 bhp engine rather than the 1991cc or 2142cc engine fitted to the 402, and coming on only the shorter 113 inch wheelbase. Longer wheelbase 402 versions were also available.
The rear wheels were driven through a three speed gearbox; 65 mph was probably about as fast it was going to go. However, you don’t have to look for long to see that this car has a long travel suspension, independent at the front, semi-elliptic at the rear, giving the car the ability to provide a better ride and cornering than many competitors. French country roads may be smoother now, but they are often still undulating, and, for Europe, France is a big place, so distances can be surprising and quick cornering can be useful.
The 302, and 402, were certainly ahead of the then technically conservative Renault, if not the innovative Citroen Traction Avant. Brakes were cable, rather than hydraulic on the Citroen, though.
However, to my taste and in this maroon colour, the 302 scores very highly on style. If you like Art Deco, you’ll fall for this car easily, from the strakes of the grille flowing over the headlights and into the bonnet, the flutes on the side of the bonnet and wheel spats, where they make an echo of the Lion of Belfort, Peugeot’s logo, the waistline ridge and the spare wheel cover. Wonderful stuff, and on a regular production car, not a limited volume coach built special.
There were other, lower volume versions of the 302, notably this Cabriolet with a fold out dickey seat. Attractive enough, but to me not quite catching the Art Deco spirit of the saloon. There’s something from the Chrysler Airflow in this car, but also something of a pre-war BMW as well. And no running boards.
Something like 25,000 302s were built in just two years, from 1936 to 1937, as the car was superseded as the smallest Peugeot by the 202, which took the style in a slightly different, less ornate direction.
The 402 remained on sale until 1942, at a slot nominally above the 302, though in the later years private sales were minimal. Most were for the French military, and many ended up in Free French colours as the French Resistance.
And my favourite detail? Below the grille, with the head lights (sadly not yellow on this example) covered and the sculpted lion’s head, the 302 logo is in French red, white and blue, and the 0 forms the crank handle access.
Wonderful – I could look at this car all afternoon!
The grille with headlights and incorporating the crank acess with the logo is pure art!, On the last photo I see an Airflow AND Valiant! Neat!
The headlights behind the grill had to have had some influence on the cartoonists at Warner Bros. when they introduced Marvin the Martian into the Bugs Bunny cartoons. The resemblance is striking.
LOL!
Nice one Roger. I love how the period numberplates curved to fit the bumper.
Sweet. The Airflow influence is undeniable. More on that subject tomorrow.
I’m not really so sure about the suspension on these pre-war Peugeots being all that soft and long-stroke. I think that was mainly a post-war development.
That is one beautiful car. I’ve always loved Peugeots, great history.
Gorgeous! The “hidden” headlamps make this uncommonly sleek and the art deco details are fantastic.
I just noticed the rear fender trim; it reminds me of the old Pontiac & Missouri Pacific logos.
The front view of that car reminds me of the quizzical but somehow sinister look my cat always seems to be giving me when I happen to glance his way. It’s endearing, but keeps me guessing. I like it. I think.
LOL!
Swoon!
I too love the beautiful details of cars of this era. I would expect the French to do those details no less exquisitely than the American cars I am more familiar with.
Those narrowly spaced headlights are quite something. I would imagine that the field of vision, especially a bit off to the sides, is constricted compared to the more normal placement.
The one thing you can count on the French doing well is “the details”! On the headlights field of vision, I assume they are aimed to compensate? IDK? Just guessing, But it’s unique, Viva la difference!
Perhaps the “field of vision” thinking was that the car, in motion, had recently showed a wider field a bit further ahead of the car, and that was enough.
I would be more concerned about oncoming traffic. On narrow, highly crowned rural roads, the cars would often drive down the center of the lane towards oncoming traffic (I found it a bit terrifying at first), and then shift to their sloped “side” of the road, at the last minute, to pass. I imagine that unless the outboard running lights were on and fairly bright, it would be hard for oncoming traffic to know if they were dealing with a car or a motorcycle coming at them at night.
The central headlight placement must have created a safety problem. At night, the would make the car look farther away that it really was. We’re used to headlights on the corners, about five feet apart. By triangulating the space between the lights, we gain information on how close the car is and how soon it will get to us. I can imagine this unusual design would have led to an excess of T-bone collisions. Pedestrians and cyclists might be influenced to get to close to the car’s path, too. The early Saturn sedan looked to have the same issue, but I don’t have any stats on that.
From Bibliothèque nationale de France.
In 1966, when I was ten years old, my two younger brothers and I lived in a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal, where my dad was stationed at the US embassy. Every Sunday, our parents would haul us to church, and parked in the town square where the church was located, was this fascinating little old car. It was creme-colored with a black roof and fenders, and the headlights were behind the grille. It sat there for many Sundays – long enough for me to sneak several peaks through the windows, where I could see what looked like engine parts laying in the shredded back seat. Eventually, after a couple years, the car dissappeared.
I had become familiar with many of the interesting or strange, old and new European cars that I saw over there, including the Peugeot 403 and 404 models. But I didn’t identify the car in the church-square until after we came back to the States. I found Floyd Clymer’s ‘Treasury of Foreign Cars’ in the local library and learned it was a Peugeot 202. By then I was old enough to start thinking about my first car and dreamed about rescuing some old derelict, then bringing it back to life. The closest I came in those days was to drag home the remains of an old Vespa motor-scooter from an abandoned construction-site. But it was far too late for that poor, ancient Peugeot.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Great article. “Wonderful stuff” – absolutely – full of character.
The interior is quite plain given how intricate the detailing is on the exterior. I kind of like the simple ring door pull in lieu of a larger arm rest handle. The late 80s 911 Club Sport shared that.
With the Vichi area containing the Peugeot factory, and not seeing much fighting, production apparently continued for two years after the fall of France. It would be interesting to wonder who the buyers were.
Aaaah the Nazi occupation and French industry… Lots to be said…
First off, Peugeot’s main factory, in Sochaux, was in the occupied zone, not the Vichy “free” zone. So AFAIK Peugeot, like the Parisian car-makers (Renault, Citroën, etc.), Peugeot was placed under direct German military rule. Plus, Sochaux was in the zone designated for future “German settlement” (though this never really happened, unlike in some places in the Eastern Front).
From the fall of 1939, Peugeot pared down their car production to a very small amount of models. If memory serves, 202 production was limited to the sedan and the 402B to the Légère sedan and the LWB limo. When the Germans invaded in June 1940, any new vehicles they found at Sochaux would have been pressed into military service and the production line halted.
A trickle of 202 and 402 units were assembled in ’41-’42. Whatever came out of the factory was either for the Germans or the French administration (police, etc.), and Peugeot was ordered to mainly build trucks for the Wehrmacht.
In 1943, Peugeot was put under Volkswagen and Ferdinand Porsche’s direct control. The aim was to get Peugeot to build components for the V1 rocket. Peugeot management dragged their feet and blocked these plans until the RAF bombed Sochaux later that year, rendering the factory inoperable.
One Peugeot that was sold on the civilian French market was the VLV (Voiture Légère de Ville (Light City Car)). This aluminium-bodied mini-car was electric, as gasoline was virtually unavailable in France during the German occupation. Only 377 were built at Peugeot’s La Garenne plant near Paris from 1941 to 1945, yet this was one of the most successful wartime French cars. Most were sold to doctors, the postal service and the like.
There’s a brief shot of some -02 series Peugeot on the street in the film The Hairdresser’s Husband.
What surprises me is, it doesn’t look much taller than modern cars, probably a close match for some CUVs which would make an interesting juxtaposition since they also have good ground clearance. I can’t find any height figures for it though. Another info need: What sort of valve train did it have? I would expect it to be OHV at least.
Those seats may look plain, but they also look very comfortable.
It’s fun trying to read the advertisement, for many of the words are recognizable. If you’re into cool old French poster art, forget Toulouse-Lautrec; now there’s something for a gearhead’s interior décor.
It looks as though the entire oval just below the rear window is illuminated, both the registration numbers and the red sections either side of them, which I think are THE original taillights with the Model A-ish looking ones on the preserved examples being add-ons (notice how the cars in the ads don’t have them).
I noticed that too. Maybe the ‘Model A-ish’ ones are add-ons for indicators?
Dues to changing regulations, many of these cars had additional rear lights added later. I strongly suspect those high ones were not legal after the war or so.
1930s ‘bread & butter’ Peugeots had pushrod OHV engines. Postwar Peugeots introduced pushrod OHV hemi engines.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Note the miniature rumble seat on the cabriolet. Just right for noisy kids! (Would a mini-rumble be a tiff seat? A squabble seat?)
LOL! “tiff seat”! writing that down!
A ‘brat-bench’!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Am I alone in thinking that the lead car looks like a big Topolino? Is that an oxymoron?
No you’re not. The Topolino came out a year or two after the first of these streamlined Peugeots, so it’s more like the Topolino is a mini-me 402. 🙂
They were heavily influenced by the Airflow as well as other aerodynamic designs in the 1933-1934 period.
The more appropriate Fiat of 1937 was the 1100/508C, which shared the greenhouse configuration of the Peugeot. The Fiat was an update of the earlier 508B “Balilla” with, most prominently, a more aerodynamic front end emulating the Peugeot. But the Fiat still had running boards and traditional external headlight mountings, so the styling looked a bit older and frumpier (which, fundamentally, it was older, going back to 1932), but still nicely done.
It looks like either parallel thinking, or, most likely, a quick remodel, once the Peugeot had rolled out.
Really nice photos here , thank you .
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The details and minutiae are cool too .
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Picture # 6’s car has wire wheels , what’s the story there ? .
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-Nate
I don’t see any wire wheels on any of these cars here. They were not used on Peugeots of this era or later. Need new glasses? 🙂
The most elegant 302 was the Darl’Mat sports special, IMHO. Designed and built by Pourtout (who also made the famous Eclipse). There was the roadster…
… and a cabriolet (different doors, windshield and soft-top…
… and a coupe, perhaps the most striking of the three. These were available in 302 and 402 versions in 1937.
ME WANT ! .
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-Nate
Great little car! Why are modern Peugeots so ugly?
A taxi version of the 402 made an appearance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_115916-Peugeot-402-L-Taxi-1936.html
I always see cars that look like this in movies set during WW II, but never recognized the make. Now I know, thank you.
Most interesting. A comparison to Roger’s final photo could be made with this shot of the simplest (thus earliest ?) version of the Traction Avant:
I have an original, unrestored 302. I was surprised how good the headlight spread is when I first drove it at night. It’s 100 x better than my 1929 Durant. The sidelights are on with the hedlights and I’ve put double filament white and orange LEDs in the sidelights for increased light and to give me indicators