GLAMOROUS GRILLES
Avant-garde
Peugeot put a Gallic twist on an American styling theme
BY MARK J. McCOURT
PHOTOGRAPH Y BY RICHARD LENTINELLO
The 1930s was a decade of major change in the automobile indus- try. Thanks to the adoption of
streamlining, the cars that had one styling theme in the first part of the decade
looked almost completely different 10
years later. The forward-thinking American industry, in the form of engineering powerhouse Chrysler, truly changed
the game with their 1934 Chrysler and
De Soto Airflows; Peugeot followed suit
with their 1935-1940 402 and 1938-1946 202,
upping the aero ante with a unique and
distinctive grille treatment.
The typically conservative French
automaker Peugeot took a bold leap
when they debuted their streamlined 402
in October 1935 at the Paris Motor Show,
a car that would come to be known as
Fuseau Sochaux, or the Sochaux rocket.
Featuring eerily similar lines and detailing to the American Airflow, the elegant
402 struck out with a unique frontal treatment, with a large, sloping shield-shaped
grille covering two inset round headlamps, leaving the smooth front fenders
devoid of decoration save for the delicate
parking lamps perched on top. A chrome
bumper with a curvaceous dip in its center underlined the grille to great effect.
The grille used in the first few years of
standard 402 production featured a thick
rimmed headlamps mounted behind the
grille, which protected them from stones
and kept the fenders perfectly smooth.
Because the 402 was a sales hit for
Peugeot, the automaker developed the
smaller, yet carbon copy 202 that would
be built between 1938 and 1945; this car’s
grille featured 10 vertical bars per side.
A facelifted 402 arrived in 1938 in the
form of the 402 B, and while this car still
sported its trademark grille-shielded
headlamps, the grille itself was modified. The overall shield shape remained,
but the grille and its 12 slender vertical
bars per side were painted body color.
The center dividing bar was wide at the
top, tapering down to a point that was
accentuated with bright metal trim that
met in the shape of an arrow. In the hollow middle of the upper dividing bar was
a new version of the Peugeot logotype
(with Légère, on special 1939 lightweight
models) and the vertical 4-0-2, now with
a ‘B’ below.
While the 402 was available in three
wheelbase lengths and numerous body
styles, they didn’t all use these distinctive front-end treatments; many of
the famous 402 Éclipse Décapotable
retractable hardtop convertibles did so,
but some of the sporting coach-built
Darl’mat roadsters placed the headlamps
conventionally into the front fenders. In
any case, a pre-war Peugeot 402 or 202
was a prescient glimpse into the future
of automotive style.
chrome surround with a matching center bar, which was topped with Peugeot’s
lion head hood ornament that doubled
as the hood release. There were 13 thin
vertical chrome bars per side of the
grille that were supported from behind
by three horizontal bars, and in the
lower center, a matching smaller shield
shape carried the Peugeot logotype and
the vertically stacked numbers 4-0-2 in
the French national colors of blue, white
and red; the 0’s center formed the starter
crank hole. A pair of close-set, chrome-
