Buy PEUGEOT 205 : LA GÉANTE DU LION

Text : Fr

In the early 1980s, Peugeot, which had taken over Citroën and Chrysler Europe, was on the verge of collapse. In the mid-1980s, the Lion walked away. Between the two? One car, one miracle: the Peugeot 205. Marketed in France on 24 February 1983, the 205 succeeded the 104. It became the second best-selling Peugeot of all time, behind the 206 and ahead of the 504. A few people, Michel Forichon, Jean-Paul Parayre, Jean Boillot, Jean Todt, Gérard Welter, Paul Bracq, imagined the car that would be nicknamed the "sacred number". A whole population, from Franche-Comté and Alsace, gave life to the 205. Discreetly revolutionary on the architectural and technical levels, at least as much as on the exterior as on the interior, the sacred number changed the image of its manufacturer in a lasting way without betraying its soul. A product of Peugeot's history that has become a vector of its future, an essential milestone of its brand, emblematic of an era, the common automotive denominator of a generation anchored in the national collective memory, the 205 has become a French legend, and a legend in its own right.