which 205 is which?

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pugsy

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There probably is a simple answer to this but in the for sale section of this forum I have noticed a series 3 205 GTi for sale as well as series 3 205 wheels for sale.Also i have seen in the trading post recently a series 1 and a half Gti
I thought the 205 only came in series 1 pre october 91 (75kw) and then series 2 after october 91.(90kw). Did I miss a series somewhere. I'm just a little confused, thanks! :confused:
 
I think it goes something like this:

In Europe they call:

Series 1 -old dash style
Series 2 -new dash style, with orange blinkers
Series 3 -white blinkers

In Australia alot of people call:
Series 1 -75kW
Series 2 -90kW

The European terminology makes more sense, since the change from 75kW (100hp) to 90kW (120hp) was Australia only. All European 205 1.9 litres had 130hp nominal(actually rarely above 125hp).

Dave
 
>The European terminology makes more sense, since the >change from 75kW (100hp) to 90kW (120hp) was >Australia only. All European 205 1.9 litres had >130hp nominal(actually rarely above 125hp).
>
>Dave

Hello all,

actually, not quite. The 1.6L started in France in 1984 at 105hp, was upgraded to 115hp in 1986. The dashboard restyling occured in 1988 and the turning lights restyling in 1991.

The 1.9L started in 1987 at 130hp and got down to 122hp in 1993 when the catalytic converter was added to it. Restylings were in line with the 1.6L model.

The years indicated are model years, starting in France in July of the previous year (thus a 1991 model would have been sold between july 1990 and june 1991).

have a good day,
Francois
 
Francois,

Thanks for the detailed info. I didn't know there was a catalysed European 205 GTI.

I already knew about both the 105hp and 115hp 1.6 litre GTi, which never came to Australia.

The catalysed 100hp 1.9 GTi came to Australia in 1987 with drum rear brakes and 14" wheels. Do you know if any other 1.9 GTi's had 14" wheels and drum rear brakes?

Dave
 
Dave,

The catalysed European 205 GTI was introduced following changes in local emission control regulation and applied at first to all engines above 1.5L (I think) and subsequently to smaller engines as well. As a consequence, carburator engines are not sold anymore

The 1.6L GTI always had 14" wheels and drum rear brakes, but the anti lock brakes options implied rear disks.

The 15" wheels were the hallmark of the 1.9L which also threw in rear disk brakes, central locking with remote and power windows in the mix to make it a much nicer car to own albeit with a slightly increased weight.

Basically, it seems what they originally sold in Oz was the 1.6L trim with a tuned down 1.9L engine (what a shame).

Francois
 
Francois Fornier:


The 15" wheels were the hallmark of the 1.9L which also threw in rear disk brakes, central locking with remote and power windows in the mix to make it a much nicer car to own albeit with a slightly increased weight.

Basically, it seems what they originally sold in Oz was the 1.6L trim with a tuned down 1.9L engine (what a shame).

Francois
Click to expand...
Francois,

Thanks, that confirms what I always thought.

When I was in Europe in July 1987, I fell in love with all the 1.9 205GTi's with 15" wheels. I was dissappointed when I got home and found that the newly released Australian model 205 1.9 GTi only had the 14" wheels.

It's funny though, because in the last 15 years I have grown to love the 205GTi fitted with the 14" wheels. It's interesting how time can change opinions.

Dave
 
You don't look for a couple of days and look what happens!

Francois is right, our first 205 GTi was a euro 1.6 with a detuned 1.9.

(I hate it when when ya dad is always right!)

We did'nt get the real one til later.

But those 15 inch Speedline wheels on the series 2 are way sexy and too good to change i say!
 
The detuned 105BHp 1.9 with 14" wheels and rear drums was sold in France and the UK under the guise of the 205 CTi 1.9, the cabriolet. The cabriolet 1.6 205 CTi was not detuned. This 105BHp 1.9 seems to have popped up in a few places, such as in some BX's....a different head maybe?

The interesting thing is that a catalytic converter was available as an option on UK and French 1.9's early on in production. This is the same JAZ motor that later came to Australia. I wonder why they didn't put a catalytic convertor onto the 1.9 GTi when they brought them out here if unleaded petrol was the main concern. Maybe they were desperately trying to keep costs to a minmum, seeing as you could buy a VL commodore for just under $15 grand, and the 205 was $30 grand.

A bit of digging around may find that other countries received detuned 1.9 GTi's like ours. I vaguely remember coming across a site from the Czech Republic with information on this model. Does anyone know?
 
Shoj,

/begin quote
The interesting thing is that a catalytic converter was available as an option on UK and French 1.9's early on in production.
/end quote

Never knew that, interesting...

/begin quote
same JAZ motor that later came to Australia. I wonder why they didn't put a catalytic convertor onto the 1.9 GTi when they brought them out here if unleaded petrol was the main concern.
/end quote

It's actually the other way around, the catalytic converter was mandated by emission control regulations, and that in turn forced the use of unleaded fuel since lead would pollute the platinum present in the converter rendering it useless.

And unleaded fuel could cause pproblems on some engines where the valve seats lubrication function was performed by lead until they modified them.

The reason why the converter was optional in early production model would probably be that at the time unleaded fuel wasn't sufficiently widespread in France (what do you do with a car you cannot refuel easily everywhere?).

Francois
 
That is interesting. It is a bit strange that they would have an option that costs more and results in less power and harder to fill up. In Australia all new cars sold from February 1 1986 onwards had to run on unleaded fuel. This meant that some European cars sold out here lost some of their spark, because they were at their optimum running on LP and therefore had to be adjusted or replaced to run on ULP. The Alfa 33 dropped from 78kw to 69kw, and BMW put their good but not as zippy Eta engines into some of their cars.

So Peugeot could not sell the 1.6 GTi in Australia, because it didn't run on unleaded petrol. I guess they then decided to put in the detuned and catalysed 1.9 motor, because it would run on ULP. So thats what made me think that they could have brought out the 1.9 with the 122BHp JAZ motor because it ran on ULP, but price would have been prohibitive.

I didn't realise that emissions controls lead to catalytic convertors which lead to ULP in Europe. I thought it was the same as here, that a date was set and that was that.
 
As I said, I never knew that option was available and of course I couldn't think of a reason why anyone in his right mind would buy it (except to be ecologically correct, of course).

Are you saying that catalytic converters are not needed in Oz and that only ULP is mandatory?

Again, as I said, we don't use ULP because it's less polluting (it may very well be, though I don't really know about that) but because catalytic converters don't like lead at all.

As for how it was handled in France, in a way a date was set for mandatory use of the converter for bigger engines and then another one for all other engines. But that date could not set precisely until ULP was widely available.
 
Francois Fornier:


Are you saying that catalytic converters are not needed in Oz and that only ULP is mandatory?
.
Click to expand...
Francois,

Both ULP and catalytic converters became compulsory by law for all new cars sold in Australia starting from January 1st 1986.

As you said the ULP is needed to avoid damaging the catalytic converter and that was half the reason for its introduction, although Australian authorities were also keen to reduce lead levels in the air in Sydney and Melbourne. Unfortunately, now we have a benzine problem in the air, but I think they're planing to fix this soon too.

The first car anti-pollution laws in Australia were introduced in 1974, they then became much stricter in July 1976 and in 1983, with the final stage being catalytic converters in 1986. I think there was a further tightening of the pollution laws in 1997 also.

They finally stopped selling leaded petrol last year and have replaced it with a fuel called LRP (lead replacement petrol) which they will stop selling in a couple of years time.

Dave
 
.....and to clarify Shoj's previous comment, 1.6 GTIs do run on unleaded (at least the later models do), but don't have cats - which is a more likely reason for not taking them to Oz........
 
Well, i am beginning to understand what happenned a bit more now. It has always been a mystery to me what Peugeot did to the 205's motor when they initially brought them to Aus. Also interesting to know the 1.6's did run on unleaded, but without the cat.
 
Thanks to all for your comments and interesting insight on emission control regulations.

So it seems that the Australian government was a little more drastic about implementing its emissions regulation. Actually, in France, it's only since jan 1, 2000 that Leaded petrol has been removed from sale, to be replaced by a special ULP (probably the same as your LRP) with additives to replace Lead for engines that depend on it.

And I forgot to add that pre catalytic converter 1.9L GTI could run on unleaded as well, since the valve since did not depend on lead for lubrication.

As an example, all Honda motorcycle engines made after 1974 can run on unleaded, regardless of where they were sold.

Cheers,
Francois
 
Interesting question
The engine from the early Series one cars from my reconning is from the US 205 CTI cars which were available at about the same time. The Haynes Sporting 205 book is the reference.
Interesting about these engines is that if you carefully measure the combustion chamber and do the com calculation it is 7.2 to 1. Great for turbo straing out of the box!!
 
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