Oh to dream!

Good colour to show the curves some Peugeots were blessed with.
 
Hmm! That's quite an affliction you have there Dan, one of which I share. That being the desire to own the unobtainable unless of course one belonged to the super-rich set, but even then you would need serious connections to be in the running to purchase such a work of art. Keep the passion alive there Dan, you never know where it will lead you.

Post scriptum: It's a miracle that any of these exotic high-end cars survived the war given that the enemy confiscated whatever they wanted to use as officer staff cars, then for the cars to survive the bombings, the need for metal to fuel the war effort and then to survive austerity measures when surviving vehicles were repurposed as work vehicles or having engines removed to power boats and sawmills etc. I'm pleased this one survived all that..
 
I would note with glee that this extra special Peugeot shares some common parts with the extra special Renaults of the same decade.

The astute observer will of course have noticed that the 3 slotted screw heads have been arranged to follow a circular motion. Nice touch.:approve:

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France had 2 million cars at the start of the war, double the number in Germany and the most motorised nation in Europe. French cars were quite important to the German war effort but the 302/402DS didn't meet the requirement for a command vehicle. I have only seen one photo of a 402DS in German service being driven by a humble corporal. The Germans also appreciated good automotive engineering although that didn't stop them shooting the designer. There wasn't a general confiscation of cars in France, but a "compulsory purchase" of vehicles of certain types and in certain areas. So they wanted newer, larger vehicles at first and took them from the cities. They were efficient in their confiscation and would pull in cars by make and model. After the fall of France there are photos of proud German officers and soldiers with their French cars and their families. So they were allowed to take them home. When the invasion of the Soviet Union took place the Germans used strike teams to occupy vast areas. Self contained forces with a command vehicle. I have a number of photos of Peugeots usually 202/302/402 leading forces. As the war went on older cars were taken. Sometimes a later model 201 is seen. Some divisions were equipped with French cars for transport. A town in the Ukraine is described as being like a French car garage with Citroens everywhere. SS Viking was equipped with Citroens. Hundreds of thousands of French cars were sent to Russia. There are many photos of them sent home by their drivers. Not many left Russia. In early 1943 an urgent call was put out for vehicles to rescue the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad. Thousands of trucks, buses and cars were shipped from all over occupied Europe and many ended up being abandoned in the frozen steppe when the rescue failed. I've never seen a Russian photo of them using a French car but they must have. The French cars didn't like the cold, the mud and the dust.
At the end of the war thousands of cars emerged from garages all over France and the Netherlands particularly in the countryside. Some didn't emerge and a Bugatti was found still in storage in the 1990's. Some of the high end German command vehicles were secreted away in the east and eventually returned home for good money.
 
Tail lights and other fittings were often common to a number of French makes. The tail light of the 1938 402b legere is also found on Bugattis of the period and of course the early 203.
Refer to Gordon Miller's Worm Review for a photograph of a Peugeot tail light on a 1938 Bugatti.
 
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Hey Dano, with your new bodywork skills, does this mean that one of your next projects could be a self build "Darl'Mat" inspired Pug?
 
There was one in South Vietnam that had a home made tail that would test bodywork skills. Or indeed Dorothy Patten's car that was found in an English garden and has gone to the Netherlands.
The cars didn't really have the performance to go with the looks. The exception was Charles deCortanze's 1938 car, known as "the big mother" that had a very special head with a design that predicted the 203.
Despite the attentions of Tom Knowles Dorothy Patten's car was described by the press as " slow" at Brooklands. They did have turn of speed and a British writer described taking one to 100 mph before he ran out of nerve.
 
They are beautiful artwork. The one in West Vancouver is a Coupé, which to me would be the one to own due to comfort. But prewar engineering and notions of driving it in modern traffic make me think I'd rather appreciate them from afar, not as an owner.
 
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I can see where the styling clues for the Jaguar XK120 came from!

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Yeah they look great in the showroom, then you take them out on the open road and this happens....

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I have NFI how to make that show without clicking on it, something that I am sure any teenager would know.
 

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Hey Dano, with your new bodywork skills, does this mean that one of your next projects could be a self build "Darl'Mat" inspired Pug?


Hi Peter,

Ah, No.

Belle is waiting for her make over...

Dano
 
They used to say that the Triumph motorcycle never needed an oil change because it worked on the total loss system..
 
Speaking of oils, and oils that ain't oils, many years ago I was involved with a product called "Purifiner', which was a bypass filtration system that basically prevented the need for oil changes and it worked well. As part of the oil cleaning system was a heated labyrinth plate at the top of the filter which removed water and dissolved fuel from the oil, whilst the filter removed solids down to 4 microns. We fitted up a fleet of Ford Louisville trucks powered by Caterpillar engines for a BP distributor in the country and a fortnight later the owner of the business rang us up and demanded we remove all the filters because they had increased his trucks oil consumption by 200+%! Oil samples taken before the Purifiners were fitted proved that the Cats were putting that much fuel into the oil they were keeping the levels up to normal whilst burning a heap of oil. (The filters removed the dissolved fuel, exposing the real, diminished oil levels.) The engines all required fuel pump and injector rebuilds.
 
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