Peugeot 504 (1969) – Into the Wild

Various Peugeot models turned out to have a rather long life. Think of the 405, which has even reached this decade in a modernized form in Iran and Azerbaijan, and the 206, which still lives on in Iran as the 207i. The Peugeot 504 was also one of those. It was built in Nigeria until 2006 (!) This means that the 504 has been in production for just under 40 years. In 1968 the 504 appeared in Europe and here too it had quite a long life. It wasn’t until 1983, 15 years after its introduction, that we stopped for the 504.

The long shelf life was largely due to the design, because according to many, Aldo Brovarone of Pininfarina had delivered a feat. This is especially true for the 504 Coupé and 504 Cabriolet, which are often referred to as the most beautiful Peugeots ever. How timeless the lines of the 504 Coupé were became clear when Peugeot came up with a modern tribute in 2018 with the E-Legend.

It is therefore not very surprising that over the years we have mainly focused on the 504 Coupé and Cabriolet that appeared in the wild, but now it is time for ‘just’ a Berline again. This nice copy was spotted by Wouter Bregman, who is active on the AutoWeek forum under the name XBXG. It is not a 504 in concours condition, but all in all it still looks very nice. We will forgive the bit of rust at the bottom just before the rear wheels. The question is whether this is a restored copy at all. The 504 came to the Netherlands in 1999, the sedan may have been taken from a warm and dry part of France and was therefore well preserved for a long time.

Which engine is in this 504 is not entirely clear from the license plate data. But since it is a 69 and there is no ‘injection’ on the butt, we assume the 82 hp 1.8 four-cylinder. What we do know is that the engine can also handle LPG in this case. It also appears that since its arrival in the Netherlands, the 504 unfortunately regularly met owners who were done with it relatively quickly. The first Dutch owner drove it for about five years and after that the car changed hands on average every year until 2009. Then the previous owner bought it and drove it for ten years. The current owner has been taking care of it for 3.5 years now. May there be many more years to come!