French cars are often a rewarding topic for the Facelift Friday section. Renault made things more colorful in the eighties and nineties of the last century, but Peugeot also often worked rigorously. The Peugeot 405 was so beautiful when it came on the market, however, that you may wonder what they had to change in the cosmetic procedures mid-life. In this episode, we mainly focus on the rear, because it mainly went on the shovel during the facelift of the Peugeot 405.
With the 405, Peugeot created a beautiful new line, in which the many years of collaboration with Pininfarina once again led to design highlights. The 405, the later 605, the small 106 and the beautiful round 306, all models that brightened up their class.
The 405 appeared on the market in 1987. Peugeot was also really ready for something new in the middle class. The 505 and the 604 were on their last legs, the 405 would take over at the bottom, the 605 had to be considered the true successor of the two largest Peugeots and that was of course a real E-segmenter. It was a busy place in the class where the 405 represented Peugeot and in those years, one after the other smoothed middle class followed. In 1987 and 1988 came the new Mazda 626, the Opel Vectra, the new Volkswagen Passat and the Toyota Carina II, just to name a few.
In 1993, with the facelift of the 405, the front was left untouched, but at the rear, the 405 as a sedan got new rear light units and a completely smoothed tailgate. The ribbed plate between the taillights disappeared after 1993. Remarkably, the Break did not participate. All that fuss about some new taillights? Well no, because the idiosyncratic dashboard of the 405 was also overhauled. The pronounced ventilation grilles disappeared and everything was clearly smoothed inside. You often saw a new dashboard with a facelift at the time, especially with the French brands that did not look at a change more or less. Incidentally, that dashboard did penetrate again to the Break that was barely adapted from the outside. We already said it: a grateful subject for Facelift Friday, those French brands!
Which version do you prefer with the 405, the original, or the facelift?
(In the absence of a good photo of the back of the facelift, we put the two Mi16 versions together)