IN HIS “MISC. RAMBLINGS,” MAY 1955, R&T Editor John R. Bond lamented “Road testing, after the first two or three, is not fun. It’s plain hard work, enlivened only by the fact that we are at least able to get cars which are not all alike.”
The French Peugeot (“rhymes badly with ‘her Joe’”) is an excellent example of this, which Bond worked into an engineering/manufacturing parable about the 203: “Whether or not the right approach,” he wrote, “is to develop a good product then keep it relatively unchanged through the years, can be debated at length.”
Bond couldn’t have appreciated completely the wisdom of this approach in 1955. The Volkswagen Beetle was to continue largely unchanged until 2003. The Porsche 911, destined to be introduced in 1963, is still with us today.
Indeed, there’s a Peugeot story associated with this latter car’s Frankfurt Motor Show debut—as the Porsche 901. The French company complained that it had priority to the x0y nomenclature, and Porsche consented to changing the name to 911.
By the way, I found no Peugeot complaints concerning the 707, Boeing’s first jetliner introduced in 1957.
Moderate Luxury with Great Dependability. “Beyond argument, however,” R&T described, “is the fact that the stick-with-a-good-thing theory makes for reliability, and this quality the French Peugeot 203 has in full measure. Nearly half a million have been built by a factory whose conservative reputation has for a long time earned it the admiration of management and labor alike, and to many a Frenchman, the 203 offers moderate luxury with great dependability—could one ask for anything more?”
Yet to See 1940. “The U.S. public could and does;” R&T said, “and one of the stumbling blocks Peugeot will face with the 203 in this country is the car’s homely looks. Not that it is bad-looking; its appearance simply suggests that it has yet to see the year 1940.”
Ouch.
And no clever ad agency had learned to promote the car’s horn sound: “two high notes at the interval of a diminished second (F and G flat)—as right out of the score of George Gershwin’s ‘American in Paris.’ ”
Curiously, R&T included this musical tidbit as a detriment, not an asset.
Mechanical Bits. R&T recounted, “Integral body and chassis construction is used, and suspension is by single transverse leaf spring in front with coil springs and stabilizer bar in the rear.”
“The engine,” R&T noted, “is a sturdy four (1290 cc) with hemispherical combustion chambers, inclined over-head valves and detachable wet cylinder liners.”
The magazine continued, “It develops 45 bhp at 4500 rpm with a 6.8:1 compression ratio, which yields an adequate, but hardly exciting, top speed of just over 70 mph.”
Like VW’s Beetle, the Peugeot could cruise at this speed forever on the Autoroute/Autobahn—once it got there.
An Odd Four-Speed. R&T described, “The column gear-shift requires some familiarization; the usual three forward speeds are supplemented by an overdrive ‘under’ second, requiring extra pressure to engage, and in over-eager starts, the beginner is likely to slam out of low into overdrive, missing second completely. Similarly, coming out of overdrive into third too vigorously can result in a complaining whine of first gear synchromesh cones. The answer is to allow the shift lever to follow its ‘natural’ course.”
And a Worm-Gear Differential. Here R&T shared engineering ken: “From a technical standpoint the Peugeot’s combination of a manually controlled overdrive and a worm gear type of differential is unique. A worm gear becomes particularly advantageous where higher-than-normal numerical ratios are needed…. If normal spiral bevel or hypoid gears were to be used the size of the pinion gear would be relatively small and weak, or the ring gear would be relatively large and heavy. The worm is the logical answer to the above problem and permits very low rear seats.”
Take a Nap. “Seating comfort is unusually good for an under-$2000 car,” R&T claimed. “There are two wide chair-type seats in front, and the straight-across rear seat accommodates two, or three in a squeeze. The front seats slide forward and tilt back to make over-night quarters, but sleeping pills are recommended for 6-footers.”
However, it noted, “Front and rear doors on each side share common hinges causing the front doors to open from the forward end, a [suicide-door] feature generally considered undesirable these days.”
Conclusion. “The Peugeot 203,” R&T summed up, “is in the truest sense a family car—roomy, comfortable, good trunk space, yet husky enough in body and engine to withstand long, hard usage with a minimum of maintenance.”
Alas, if only that “Honk If You Love Paris” ad campaign had been devised. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025