Peugeot Type 54

Bicycle manufacturer Peugeot built his first automobile, a tricycle, in 1888, powered by steam. This prompted Levassor to contact him and suggest that the Daimler internal combustion engine would be better than boiling water! With a nod to the company’s cycling roots, the original Peugeot had wire-spoked wheels. 

The company of Les Fils de Peugeot Freres made three cars (with four wheels, tiller steering and chain drive) in 1890. The following year five cars were made, the year after 29 and in 1896 Peugeot began to make their own engines. The same year Armand left the original company to found Societe des Automobiles Peugeot. Production increased rapidly and by 1899 Peugeot had sales of 300 automobiles.

At the turn of the century Peugeot was producing a full range of cars, but modernisation began to take place, the engine moving from the rear to the front and the steering wheel replaced the tiller. In later years the company was to become a leader in engineering and design with pressed steel chassis and honeycomb radiators.

Like many of the early car makers, Armand recognised the importance of motor sport: Albert Lemaitre won what is generally accepted as the first ever motor race, from Paris to Rouen in 1894, in a 3hp Peugeot, and in 1899 the same driver won the Nice-Castellane-Nice rally in a 5.8-litre Peugeot special. A Peugeot was also the first racing car to use the Michelin pneumatic tyre. 

Peugeot’s most successful car of the early years was the Type 54 single-cylinder, 5hp, shaft-driven car which began production in 1903. 

About this vehicle

This is an early example of the two-seat Type 54. Previously the property of a doctor in Basingstoke, the Peugeot was bought in 1929 by Richard Shuttleworth from a scrap dealer in Andover for the sum of £3.10s. Like many other of Richard’s acquisitions, moving the Peugeot from Hampshire to Old Warden was an adventure. 

With friend Jimmy Edmunds at the wheel, Richard towed the Peugeot, with paraffin side lamps and no rear light, behind his sports Alvis. The convoy paused in the centre of London for coffee, and at some road works north of London a red warning lamp was ‘borrowed’ to fit on the rear of the Peugeot to complete the journey.

The Peugeot took part in the London to Brighton Run of 1929, and since then has been a participant on nearly 20 occasions as well as being a popular sight at Shuttleworth vehicle parades. 

This is one the earliest Peugeots to have wheel rather than tiller steering. In 2022 it emerged from a two-year full restoration programme undertaken by volunteers of the Shuttleworth vehicle Collection. Work included manufacture of a new piston, extensive repairs to the gearbox and manufacture of a complete new body from seasoned ash and tulip wood. 

Specification