5k: Error 404 Found: 1965 Peugeot 404 Sedan
The standard web server response to a user selecting a dead link is to generate a “404 not found” error message, but when you find a Peugeot 404, you’ve got to wonder if it was by error? Its not that the 404 is a bad car, it’s just that it is an odd car to find in the USA and general perceptions of the French equivalent of Sweden’s 122/Amazon aren’t particularly positive. Find this 1965 Peugeot 404 sedan for sale in Reading, PA currently bidding for $5,656 via ebay with 4 days to go. Tip from John G.
The comparison to the 122/Amazon isn’t just an issue of size/performance, but also styling as both are ’60s cars that show a decidedly ’50s American approach to styling with pontoon style front fenders and tail fins in the back. The 404 sold extremely well for a French sedan, with over 2.8 million of the mid-sized sedan/coupe/pickup family being built and sold around the world between 1960 and 1991.
The 404 is powered by a 1.6 liter inline-4 cylinder carburetor equipped engine good for 76 horsepower and attached to a 4-speed manual gearbox. Unfortunately this engine hasn’t run since 1970 and while the seller states it turns over freely by hand, he has wisely decided not to start/run this thing because it will likely pump out blue smoke like a Venice Beach hooka shop.
While the last 43 years of storage have been harsh on mechanical components, the interior looks great – but we’d be concerned about surfaces being mummified and crumbling into dust the first time you touch them like that Nazi dude in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he picked the wrong chalice. He chose…poorly.
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Lt. Columbo's car.
I think that was a 1959 Peugeot 403 convertible.
Pretty cool find. Certainly would generate some attention at the next local car show. It would be even cooler if we knew it actually could be driven. What are the odds the seller set a reasonable reserve based on that unknown?
Then there's the column-mounted shifter action…which will take some getting used to.
Guys.way too harsh! These used to abound in university towns……..which among a downscale sector of the plitical universe would doom it..but not with elitist me…..but nonetheless………have you ever seen a cleaner more detailed engine that HASNT run in forty years? Hmmmmmm.
I don't see anything overly harsh going on here…neither in the text above nor in the comments. The car looks amazing for a survivor, but it's justified to be a bit skeptical of mechanical condition when the car admittedly hasn't run in 43 years.
Never very popular in the USA but good cars they ride nice i l lived in South America and there was quite a few running around.I know there were a lot in Africa also.
FYI…BaT picked this one up a little while ago. To be fair, should I tell BaT to go find their own cars?
reading their analysis, it's like they *were* looking at a different car!
I grew up in a college town during the 60's when sweater wearing pipe smoking wannabe authors drove these. They also worked as Taxis in Nairobi. I've ridden in them in two continents, each time I was left with the same thought… Let ME OUT!! But in fairness it was because the first was driven way too slow, the second with reckless abandon. The mental scars remain so I'll just pass.
Dammit… I'm sorry… wrong site. Feel free to delete that. I meant to write, excellent opportunity to drop a proper powerplant into it and make it the ultimate Franco-American S-Car-Go!
Hehehehe