The Peugeot 402 is a large family car produced by Peugeot in Sochaux, France, from 1935 to 1942. It was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1935, replacing the Peugeot 401.
The Peugeot 402 stands out in automotive design by its very streamlined, but also still somewhat Art Deco styling, strongly influenced by that of the 1934 Chrysler Airflow; especially the low-volume 402 Darl'mat coupé is viewed as distinctly Art Deco. Peugeot's 402 took it two steps further, however: the grille has an even more pronounced rake, but most importantly, Peugeot brought the headlights to the center, behind the grille, and in front of the radiator, sixteen years before the 1951 General Motors Le Sabre concept car. Contrary to Chrysler's Airflow, the Peugeot 402 wasn't a sales flop.
Furthermore, the 402 Éclipse décapotable, made in collaboration with Pourtout coachbuilders, was one of the world's first convertible hard-top production cars.
Despite being introduced some thirteen years after the demise of the 402 during World War II, the Peugeot 403 was clearly intended as the 402's successor, given that after the war, the market first needed cheaper and smaller, more frugal cars. Peugeot saw this and thus focused on their 202 and 203 models during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
A conservative innovator The 402 was characterized by what became during the 1930s a "typically Peugeot" front end, with headlights well set back behind the grille. The style of the body was directly modelled on the Chrysler Airflow, which was seen as revolutionary at the time. Peugeot bought one or two Airflows to disassemble and study. Thus, the 402 received the soubriquet: 'Fuseau Sochaux' in France – this loosely translates to the "spindle or axis of Peugeot's main plant in Sochaux". Streamlining was a feature of French car design in the 1930s, as can be seen by comparing the Citroën Traction Avant or some of the Bugattis of the period, such as the Type 57, with predecessor models such as the Citroën Rosalie. Peugeot was among the first volume manufacturers to apply streamlining to the extent exemplified by the 402 and smaller Peugeot 202 in a volume market vehicle range.
Recessed ‘safety’ door handles also highlighted the car's innovative aspirations, as did the advertised automatic transmission and diesel engine options. Comparisons with Citroën's large family car of the time, the Traction Avant were and remain unavoidable. In that comparison, the basic underpinnings of the 402 remained conventional, based on known technologies, and presumably were relatively inexpensive to develop and manufacture: it was Citroën that in 1934 had been forced to sell its car manufacturing business to its largest creditor, Michelin. Sticking to a traditional separate chassis configuration also made it much easier for Peugeot's 402 to be offered with a wide range of different bodies.
Peugeot invested significantly in developing the car and in tooling up to produce it. The 402 was a popular seller by the standards of the time. It was also a large car and at the high end of the car market, and in advertising material of the time Peugeot evidently thought it important to highlight one or two tempting standard features, such as the twin windscreen wipers powered by their own electric motor, the semaphore-style trafficators, the clock included on the instrument panel, the twin sun visors and the switchable reserve section of the fuel tank.
The range
Even by 1930s standards, the range of different 402 models based on the single chassis was large, comprising at one stage, by one estimate, sixteen different body types, from expensive steel bodied convertible cars, to family saloons which were among the most spacious produced in France.
An aspect of the all-steel car bodies that became mainstream among the larger European automakers in the 1930s was the very high initial cost associated with the heavy steel presses and the dies needed to cut and stamp pressed steel sheeting into the panels that, when welded together, would form a sufficiently rigid and robust car body. The wide range of car bodies was therefore carefully devised to maximise the sharing of panels between the different body variants listed.
Three chassis lengths There were three different standard wheelbases of (short), (“normal”) and (long).
“short” wheelbase (1937-1940) When the 402 was launched in 1935 there were just two chassis lengths, but for 1937 the manufacturer added a third “short” chassis, inherited from the short-lived Peugeot 302. The short chassis was used from 1937 for the Peugeot 402 Légère (“light-bodied”).
The Peugeot 402 Légère was first exhibited in July 1937 and was featured on the Peugeot stand in place of the Peugeot 302 at that year's October Motor Show. The car combined the wheelbase and body from the Peugeot 302 with the larger 1991 cc engine of the Peugeot 402. Whereas the 302 had produced a maximum output of at 4,000 rpm, maximum power for the 402 Légère was listed as still at 4,000 rpm. That translated into a difference in listed top speed between 105 km/h (65 mph) and 125 km/h (78 mph). The simple formula of combining one existing bodyshell with another engine that was also already in production enabled the manufacturer to produce an attractively brisk car with minimum investment. Approximately 11,000 were produced.
From the outside the 402 Légère was initially virtually indistinguishable from the 302. However, on the front grille, whereas on the 302 the hole for the starting handle corresponded with the central digit in the car's name spelled out on bottom part of the front grille, on the 402 Légère it was necessary to position the hole for the starting handle below the “402” name badge because the engine itself was positioned very slightly higher. An improvement over the 302 available to the driver, albeit only at extra cost, was the option of a Cotal pre-selector transmission, which could be controlled using a selector lever positioned directly behind the steering wheel, so that the driver needed to move his/her hand only minimally in order to change gear.
Although sources tend to refer to the 402 Légère as a single model, there was nevertheless a choice of at least three bodies.
Priced at 24,900 Francs in October 1937 was the four door “402 Légère berline” (saloon/sedan) using the body already familiar from the 302. Not yet ready for presentation at the 1937 show, but nevertheless already priced (at 30,900 Francs) and advertised was the 402 Légère “coach”, which was a stylish thinner looking 2-door four seater car shaped somewhere between a sedan/saloon and coupe, with “glass on glass” side windows (allowing for the possibility, with the windows open, of a “pillarless” side profile) and front seats that tilted to permit access to the adequately spacious rear of the passenger cabin. Represented at the motor show by a prototype which differed in certain details from the cars that actually appeared a few months later was the 402 Légère “décapotable” (soft-top convertible), priced at 31,900 Francs. Both the “coach” and the “décapotable” bodied cars featured a slightly more streamlined look than the “berline”, and their stylishness was enhanced by “spats” covering the upper portions of the rear wheels.
“normal” wheelbase (1935-1942) The standard bodied saloon/sedan (berline), first presented at the Paris Motor Show in the late Autumn of 1935 sat on the “normal” chassis and was advertised as a six-seater, the passengers being accommodated in two rows on bench seats in what was, by the standards of the time and place, an unusually wide car. The four-door "berline" came as a "6 glaces" (six-light, ie three windows on each side) saloon/sedan. In 1936 the price list showed the saloon as the least expensive of the normal wheelbase 402s, priced from 23,900 francs.
Closely resembling the 402 berline "6 glaces", at first sight, was the 402 "normale commerciale" also offering seating for six people accommodated in two rows. However, at the back, in place of the more usual panels, the “commerciale” featured a two-piece tailgate. The rear of the cabin was described as being “transformable pour transport de marchandises” (transformable for transport of goods) which presumably would have involved lifting out the rear seat. Later on there were also 402 commerciales exhibited with semi-squared off rear roof lines along the lines of a steel bodied station wagon/estate car conversion, but most of the 402 commerciales shared, from the side, the silhouette of the 402 saloon/sedan, presumably in order to avoid the cost of tooling up for volume-style production of a relatively small number of uniquely shaped body panels.
Other models appearing on the “normal” wheelbase at the 1936 show included a Grand-luxe berline with a sliding steel sun roof, a 4/5 seater 2-door soft-top cabriolet priced in October 1936 at 30,900 francs, a 5/6-seater "coach" (elegant two-door saloon) priced at 29,900 francs, a 2/3-seater roadster at 27,900 francs and a "coupé transformable Éclipse", which was a steel-roofed convertible, priced at 34,900 francs.
The Éclipse was significant as the first of many Peugeot coupés with a steel roof that would fold and stow in the boot/trunk. The retractable hardtop mechanism had been designed, and in 1931 patented, by Georges Paulin. The mechanism was initially bulky by modern standards, and necessitated a very long tail end. Despite the generous length of the wheelbase, this first application of the technology came with just two seats. Interest in the Éclipse resurfaced more than half a century later with the reinvention of the retractable hardtop by the 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder and subsequent popularization of the concept by cars such as the 1996 Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class. Peugeot resumed production of hardtop convertibles with the 2001 Peugeot 206 CC (Coupé Cabriolet).
Several of the body types were priced (and presumably costed) to be produced in relatively low volumes, and despite appearing at the Motor Show in October 1936, three had been delisted by the start of 1937. The delisted variants were the 5/6-seater "coach", the 4/5-seat, 2-door soft-top cabriolet, and the steel-roofed "Coupé transformable Éclipse", although the third of these had already been effectively replaced in 1936 by a similar but even longer steel-roofed convertible Éclipse – now with seating for 4/5 people and using the longest of the 402's three chassis.
“long” wheelbase (1935-?1940) The principal “long” Peugeot 402 in 1935 was the “402 Familiale”, closely resembling the “normal” length six light “berline, but with extra length used in the rear of the cabin to accommodate a third row of seats (“strapontins escamotables”) which could be folded away when not in use.
By the time of the 1937 Motor show, in time for the 1938 model year, the 402 commerciale had also migrated from the “normal” to the “long wheelbase”.
In addition, the manufacturer advertised a special taxi version of the long wheel base car, closely resembling the Familiale and of which, it was boasted in 1937, several thousand were already in service “in Paris and the [other] principal towns and cities in France or the colonies”.”les taxis 402 dont plusieurs milliers d’exemplaires ont été mise en circulation à Paris et sans les principales villes de France ou des colonies, ont permis à chacun d’apprécier les remarquables qualités de confort, de sécurité et de vitesse….” Peugeot catalogue at the 1936 Motor Show Peugeot were slightly unusual among principal auto-makers at this time in never having acquired a Paris taxi business themselves, but the 402 taxi had nevertheless evidently been well received by independent taxi operators.
Much attention at the 1936 show also focused on the “402 cabriolet metallique decouvrable” which was a reincarnation of the Éclipse, but now using the “long” wheel base which made enough space for a (rather cramped) second bench seat.