Hello to all members of Team-BHP!
My name is Mike Tippett and I live on Vancouver Island in western Canada. I would like to start a thread about the car that most interests me: the Peugeot 404 Coupé and Cabriolet (also referred to as the “404C”). The production run lasted from late 1961 through October 1968. This model was based upon the robust underpinnings of the Peugeot 404 saloon; however, the bespoke 2 door body was designed and manufactured in Italy by the Pininfarina company, in Grugliasco Italy. Peugeot sent the floorplate and front part of the saloon chassis to Italy by train, and Pininfarina built up the Coupé and Cabriolet shells on top of the French base. The cars with painted bodies.glass and full interiors were then sent back by rail to Sochaux, France, where the engines and drivetrains were mounted by Peugeot.
The 404C had significantly reinforced floor sections to accommodate the open body of the convertible version, and the fixed head Coupé also had these reinforcements and was therefore a significantly stronger car than either the saloon or the Cabriolet. Over the production run that lasted eight years, a total of 17,223 404C models were built.
The 404C was available with wither a carbureted 1600 cc engine with between 72 and 80 HP (depending upon the model year), or optionally with a similar 1600 cc engine equipped with mechanical fuel injection by Kugelfischer, rated at 85 HP (1962-1964) or 96 HP (1965-1968). Top speed was limited by the rather short gearing, in the fuel injected cars, to about 170 km/h, which is 6000 RPM in 4th.
I have owned a Peugeot 404 Coupé continuously since February 1981, when I was a student in university, and my present car is a 1966 model with fuel injection and it is a restoration project that I have been planning since 1989! I expect to begin the restoration in a few years’ time, but over the past 21 years I have been buying new parts to help with the restoration: all new sheetmetal for the exterior (4 new wings, believe me, they were hard to find), every mechanical part you can imagine, and then some.
My present project concerning the 404C in general is the development of a worldwide Registry for the model. This idea grew from my membership (since 1984) in the French Club 404, which began a Registry of its members’ cars. From that beginning, the Registry has grown far beyond the Club membership – all over the world in fact – to the point where we now have 1582 of the 17,223 cars accounted for, which is a reasonable 9.2% of the total. However, Le Club 404 and I remain convinced that there may be another 1500 of them still to add, and I am looking everywhere for them, including India. I know that there are at least a couple of them in India, because there are photos of a blue one on this very website.
Like any Registry worth its salt, this one uses the serial/chassis number (or VIN if you prefer) to enter the cars into the database. Using this number ensures that every car is entered only once and that the integrity of the data is assured. Of course, convincing others to share this with us is sometimes a challenge, because the people we contact are not Club members and may not have confidence in our motivations. Well they are pure and we simply want to know how many of these interesting cars are left worldwide, full stop!
In the pursuit of this goal, we have been developing web tools to encourage owners to submit their data automatically, and this site also has a facility for uploading a photograph of the car too: Peugeot 404 Serial Number Inventory
Meanwhile I have also been pursuing individual leads respecting the owners of 404C cars, contacting them when possible and asking for them to add their cars to the Registry. I hope that those of you who know 404C owners will encourage them to participate. We will also be delighted to receive 404 saloon and estate/pick-up data as well – we also have the beginnings of a “regular” 404 database.
I have been cooperating with 404C enthusiasts worldwide in this project, and one of them is Peter Teuffel in Germany. You can get a taste of this Registry project at his webpage, which has a number of photos of Peugeot 404C cars known to us, listed by Chassis/serial number: http://www.loewenland24.de/register-peugeot-404-cabriolet-und-coupé/
What I propose to do here is occasionally update this thread with new information, when we receive newly registered cars. This will eventually get me over the 25 minimum post threshold that I will require to make deeper contact with this enthusiast community.
I thank you for your attention, and ask for your kind assistance!