(80's upbeat music) There are some people who just use cars
to get from A to B, then there are some for whom getting from A to B is a
gorgeous, exciting thrill. To them a car is more than just four wheels and a tin
box that moves around. It evokes passion, a thrill and a pride of ownership. The
Peugeot 205 is a practical, economical car for the A to B'ers, and it was even a
practical light van, but it's also a car that delivers luxurious thrills as an open top,
or grin-forming performance with the stripped down 205 Rallye or the
legendary sub-8 second 1.9 GTi. This is the Peugeot 205 Story. (music) The forerunner of the 205 was the Peugeot 104, introduced in 1972. Although it looked all the world
like a hatchback, it was a saloon, but with hatchbacks like the 1971 Fiat 127
and 1972 Renault 5, it didn’t take long for the car to gain a third door on the back.
Peugeot were reluctant to make it a 5-door for fear they would cannibalise sales
from the Peugeot 204 Break estate, but with production of the 204
ending in 1976, they relented. The 104 was a popular and long-lived car in many forms. Peugeot bought the bankrupt Citroën in 1975 and the Citroën LN was
essentially a rebadge of the 104 coupé, with the Citroën Visa using many of the 104’s components. Peugeot also bought Chrysler’s European operation in 1979, reworking
the 104 into the Talbot Samba in 1981. With sales of the 104 and its derivatives strong, and with supermini sales going from strength to strength, Peugeot felt they should invest
heavily in the 104’s replacement. But buying and running Citroën and Chrysler
wasn’t cheap, and by the early 80’s Peugeot’s finances weren’t looking too good.
With a dated model range, they needed to sell cars like hot cakes to get back on track and were hoping the Chrysler purchase would help them open up new export markets. The 205 started development in 1977 as the M24 project, using the Peugeot 104 as a starting point. It had to be light, to give it good fuel economy from
the Peugeot’s existing 950cc and 1.1L engines. The engine would be mounted in such a way as to allow for automatic gearboxes to be allied to larger engines in the future. The French Peugeot always had their eyes on competitor Renault and beating their popular Renault 5 was paramount. There was a hope the car could compete in motorsports, and they wanted a piece of the hot hatch market created by the newly launched Volkswagen Golf GTi, so the engine bay was designed so it could accommodate larger engines than the 104. To provide the most interior space in this small package, the car’s suspension used MacPherson struts up front, with torsion bars at the rear. As for styling,
Peugeot had two teams creating designs. Long-time Peugeot collaborators Pininfarina, and Peugeot’s own designer Gerald Welter, also known for his Le Mans race car designs.
Pininfarina came up with an angular design, with Welter’s being more rounded. Welter’s design would win through, and the 205 would be the start of a new Peugeot design language. The style was friendly, but also well-proportioned and practical, giving it a wide appeal in many countries.
More importantly it appealed to the young, a market segment that had eluded Peugeot up until then. The interior would be designed by Paul Bracq.
He initially went for an all-electronic dashboard, but this was rejected as too expensive. Instead he proposed a simple, modular dashboard, giving it the ability to swap out pieces such as the instrument cluster, to allow for lower or higher spec variants. Unlike the 104 that
had different wheelbases for 3 and 5-door cars, the 205 would use the same wheelbase for all versions. With 104 sales still strong, Peugeot kept selling it as the budget model and introduced the 205 as the new upscale model, even though the 104 and 205 were basically the same size. Peugeot kept producing the 104 and its variants until 1988, selling over 2M cars. The new Peugeot 205 wouldn’t be
rebadged as a Citroën or a Talbot. When Peugeot bought Chrysler’s European
operations, they renamed it as Talbot, but by the early 80’s the name was
essentially dead due to slow sales, and the only remaining car in development,
the Arizona, was sold as the Peugeot 309. When Peugeot bought Citroën in 1975, they vowed that the two companies would remain independent and develop their own cars. As they turned around and rebadged the Peugeot 104 as the Citroën LN, it seemed a little hypocritical, but with no other way for Peugeot to develop a Citroën supermini quickly, this was their only option. But Peugeot
was true to its word, and in the 1980’s Citroën would forge its own supermini
route with the angular Citroën AX. In 1981 the 35-year old rally co-driver Jean Todt
went to Peugeot’s CEO Jean Boillot with the idea of creating a rallying 205,
with him heading the team. Peugeot had an image of building big, slow cars, and this was just the thing that could turn around the company’s image. The 205 Turbo 16 was ready by 1983 with a heavily modified body, engine, Citroën SM gearbox and 4WD. Although the road-going version had around 200hp, it’s reputed the Evo 2 version had 450bhp and a 0-60 time of just 3.3 seconds! With figures like that, it’s not surprising that the car won both the 1985 and 1986 Constructors and Drivers’ titles. Jean Todt went on to run the Ferrari Formula 1 team, winning 5 consecutive titles starting in 2000,
and he now heads the FIA. The 205 was launched in January 1983 at a special press event in Monaco, and a month later customers started driving them off the dealers’ forecourt. It was initially only available as a 5-door, but with three different engines - 950cc, 1.1L and 1.4L. A large but frugal
1.8L diesel appeared later that same year. The diesel was innovative, with performance as good as the 1.4L petrol engine but much cheaper to run. It would help boost the European love affair
with frugal diesel engines in the 1980s. Right hand drive models reached UK and Irish shores in September. The car had strong competition. The second-generation Ford Fiesta, Fiat Uno,
Opel Corsa / Vauxhall Nova, and Nissan Micra would all be launched around the same time. But the Peugeot shook off the competition and thrived, being an immediate hit with the public. In 1984 the
3-door hatchbacks arrived along with a now-legendary hot hatch. The 1.6L GTi had a 0-60 time of just 9½ seconds, but the 1986 1.9L GTi became the benchmark by which all others were measured.
Where the Golf GTI got to 60 in 8.9 seconds, the 205 would do it in just 7.8. This became the hot hatch to buy in the mid-80s and sales just kept growing. If you want to start an argument with a bunch of 205 fans, ask them whether the 1.6 or 1.9 is better to drive. The debate continues to rage on to this day! Although Pininfarina’s design hadn’t been selected for the 205 body, they were asked to make the 1985 cabriolet version. And the GTi would have an open top sister as the CTi. The roll bar gave it some structural rigidity, especially useful when
throwing the fast car into a bend. The supermini was becoming a truly aspirational
luxury item, not just a small, cheap car that you bought because you couldn’t afford anything else. Luxury car companies would take note, with BMW, Audi and Mercedes investing in superminis such as the Mercedes A-class in 1997. After creating such a buzz around its halo models, Peugeot built cheaper special editions such as the 205 Look. Automatic gearboxes appeared in 1986, along with another hot hatch special edition, this time the 205 Rallye designed to compete
in the 1.3L rallying engine class. The tuned engine and spartan interior made it almost as fast as the 1.6 GTi with a 0-60 time of 11.3 seconds. The 205 Rallye used the new TU petrol engine, and this was rolled out across the 205 line. The engine proved to be economical and reliable, being fitted to Peugeots and Citroëns in one form or another until 2014. With such a successful platform, Peugeot allowed partially completed vehicles to be modified into small commercial vans such as the 1986 205 Multi
and the more successful 1993 205 F. The dashboard was redesigned in 1988, and there was a small restyle in 1991, but the 205 really didn’t change much during its production run. As the 80’s turned into the 90’s, newer competitors to the 205 would come along such as the Renault Clio, and updated versions of the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Polo, but with the 205 still holding its own against the competition into the 1990s, Peugeot would plough their new found finances into new cars such as the 306, launched in 1993. Peugeot dabbled with an electric 205 prototype in 1990, with a 125-mile range, and the Turbo diesel that I lusted after in the Citroën BX
arrived in the 205’s engine bay in 1991. Although it only had 78hp to the BX’s 89, 0-60 was a
so-so 12.2 seconds and it got an amazing 61mpg. Peugeot had a presence in the North American market since the 1950s, and it was tempting to introduce the 205 there, but with Peugeot being known for larger, upmarket cars, and with the USA not in love with superminis in the 1980s, the 205 stayed in Europe and Peugeot NA stopped selling cars there in the early 1990s. In those dark days of the late 1970s when Peugeot was in financial trouble, there was hope the 205 could sell 1.6M cars. In the end it sold 5.3M with the last car rolling off the production line in 1998 after 15 years of production. There was initially no direct replacement. Peugeot thought the 106 and 306 could adequately replace the 205, but with such brand recognition common sense prevailed & the 206 replaced it in 1998. Good thing too, as the 206 went
on to eclipse the 205 in sales, being the highest selling Peugeot
model of all time with over 8M sold. It’s surprising that at the time the car didn’t win Car of the Year. That honour went to the Fiat Uno. But Car Magazine awarded the 205
Car of the Decade for the 1980s. The French people awarded the 205 the moniker
“sacré numéro”, or “lucky number” as it sold so well. It was lucky for Peugeot as it saved the company
and truly was a game changing car. This VW Jetta is happy because he’s just subscribed to Big Car. He knows that when I make new videos he’ll know instantly because he hit the bell icon. Make him even happier by subscribing yourself, and consider supporting me on Patreon for just $1 or 80p a month.
