Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker in Europe.

Peugeot's roots go back to nineteenth century coffee mill and bicycle manufacturing. The Peugeot company and family is originally from Sochaux, France. Peugeot retains a large manufacturing plant and Peugeot Museum there. It also sponsors the Sochaux football club, founded in 1928 by a member of the Peugeot family.

Early history

Armand Peugeot became interested in the automobile early on, and after meeting with Gottlieb Daimler and others, was convinced of its viability. The first Peugeot automobile (a three-wheeled steam-powered car designed by Léon Serpollet) was produced in 1889; only four were made.Georgano, p22. Steam power was heavy and bulky and required lengthy warmup times. In 1890, after meeting Gottlieb Daimler and Emile Levassor, steam was abandoned in favour of a four-wheeled car with a petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine built by Panhard under Daimler licence.

More cars followed, twenty-nine being built in 1892, forty in 1894, seventy-two in 1895, 156 in 1898, and fully three hundred in 1899. These early models were given "Type" numbers with the Type 12, for example, dating from 1895. Peugeot became the first manufacturer to fit rubber tires to a petrol-powered car that year (solid tires).Fact: date=June 2007 Peugeot was also an early pioneer in motor racing, entering the 1894 Paris-Rouen Rally with five carsGeorgano, p.22. (placing second, third {Pierre Giffard, who had conceived the trial}, and fifth {Koechlin}) and the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux with three, where they were beaten by Panhard's car (despite an average speed of Georgano, p.20. and taking the 31,500 franc prize. This also marked the debut of Michelin pneumatic tyres in racing,Darke, p.1684. also on a Peugeot; they proved insufficiently durable. Nevertheless, the vehicles were still very much horseless carriages in appearance and were steered by a tiller.

1896 saw the first Peugeot engines built; no longer were they reliant on Daimler. Designed by Rigoulot, the first engine was an horizontal twin fitted to the back of the Type 15. It also served as the basis of a nearly exact copy produced by Rochet-Schneider. Further improvements followed: the engine moved to the front on the Type 48 and was soon under a hood (bonnet) at the front of the car, instead of hidden underneath; the steering wheel was adopted on the Type 36; and they began to look more like the modern car.