Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.
The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion trademark. The company produced its first automobile in 1891. Due to family discord, Armand Peugeot in 1896 founded the Société des Automobiles Peugeot.
Peugeot's roots go back to 19th-century coffee mill and bicycle manufacturing. The Peugeot company and family is originally from Sochaux, France. Peugeot retains a large manufacturing plant and Peugeot Museum there. It also sponsors the Sochaux football club, founded in 1928 by a member of the Peugeot family.
Armand Peugeot became interested in the automobile early on and, after meeting with Gottlieb Daimler and others, was convinced of its viability. The first Peugeot automobile (a three-wheeled steam-powered car designed by Léon Serpollet) was produced in 1889; only four examples were made. Steam power was heavy and bulky and required lengthy warmup times. In 1890, after meeting Gottlieb Daimler and Émile Levassor, steam was abandoned in favour of a four-wheeled car with a petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine built by Panhard under Daimler licence. The car was more sophisticated than many of its contemporaries, with a three-point suspension and a sliding-gear transmission.
1896 saw the first Peugeot engines built; no longer were they reliant on Daimler. Designed by Rigoulot, the first engine was an 8 hp (6.0 kW) horizontal twin fitted to the back of the Type 15.[11] It also served as the basis of a nearly exact copy produced by Rochet-Schneider.[11] Further improvements followed: the engine moved to the front on the Type 48 and was soon under a hood (bonnet) at the front of the car, instead of hidden underneath; the steering wheel was adopted on the Type 36; and they began to look more like the modern car.
From the turn of the century, through the war years, Peugeot continued to expand and restarted car production in 1946.
In 1947, Peugeot introduced the Peugeot 203, with coil springs, rack-and-pinion steering, and hydraulic brakes.The 203 set new Peugeot sales records, remaining in production until 1960.
The company began selling cars in the United States in 1958, and in 1960 introduced the Peugeot 404, which used a 1,618 cc (99 cu in) version of the 403 engine, tilted 45o. The 404 proved rugged enough to win the East African Safari Rally, in four of the six years between 1963 and 1968.
In 1974 Peugeot bought a 30% share of Citroën, and took it over completely in 1975 after the French government gave large sums of money to the new company. Citroën was in financial trouble because it developed too many radical new models for its financial resources. Some of them, notably the Citroën SM and the Comotor rotary engine venture proved unprofitable. Others, the Citroën CX and Citroën GS for example, proved very successful in the marketplace.
The group then took over the European division of Chrysler (which were formerly Rootes and Simca), in 1978 as the American auto manufacturer struggled to survive. Further investment was required because PSA decided to create a new brand for the entity, based on the Talbot sports car last seen in the 1950s. From then on, the whole Chrysler/Simca range was sold under the Talbot badge until production of Talbot-branded passenger cars was shelved in 1987 and on commercial vehicles in 1992.
In 1983 Peugeot launched the popular and successful Peugeot 205, which is largely credited for turning the company's fortunes around.
As experienced by other European volume car makers, Peugeot's U.S. and Canadian sales faltered and finally became uneconomical, as the Peugeot 505 design aged. For a time, distribution in the Canadian market was handled by Chrysler. Several ideas to turn around sales in the United States, such as including the Peugeot 205 in its lineup, were considered but not pursued. In the early nineties, the newly introduced Peugeot 405 proved uncompetitive with domestic and import models in the same market segment, and sold less than 1,000 units. Total sales fell to 4,261 units in 1990 and 2,240 through July, 1991. This caused the company to cease U.S. and Canada operations after 33 years.
Peugeot is also planning on pursuing new markets, namely in China, Russia and South America.