Peugeot Festival fetes 405
Special 14-car cavalcade marks 30 years of Peugeot’s big hitter at this year’s PugFest event
Peugeot 405 enthusiasts – some of whom drove from as far away as Oostend in Belgium – joined the L’Aventure Peugeot museum and racing driver Paul Waterhouse in commemorating three decades of the model on Sunday, 1 July.
Heading the display of 14 405s was L’Aventure Peugeot’s 405 Coupé USA; a leather-trimmed, running two-door notchback built by now defunct coachbuilder Heuliez. It never went into production.
Finished in 1987, a year before the launch of the 405, the Coupé USA had never left France until its appearance at Prescott Speed Hill Climb. L’Aventure Peugeot bought the car from the Heuliez museum sale in 2012; having maintained it as a runner, the parade run fell to Xavier Crespin, general director of L’Aventure Peugeot, who drove it up the course along with PSCUK’s PR and Marketing manager Chris Hughes.
Paul Waterhouse’s 405 Mi16 touring car followed the Coupé USA up the hill, along with a T16, one of six built to British specification, and an SRi belonging to Sam Dawson, news editor of Classic Car
Weekly’s sister magazine, Classic Cars.
Xavier Crespin said: ‘ The Coupé USA was the final piece in the 405’s puzzle; to tell its story to the fullest, we had to buy it.’
Other Peugeot highlights included the 20th anniversary of the 306 Rallye, a guest appearance from the only roadworthy 505 V6 left in the UK, and a stand from infamous Belgian tuner, Dimma Design, which relaunched its wares at the show and demonstrated its 180bhp 205 Rallye 1.9 along Prescott’s layout. PSCUK’s Peugeot Festival is set return on June 30, 2019.