Peugeot 604 - in The Marketplace

In The Marketplace

The 604 was effectively Peugeot's first entry into the executive class market segment and augmented the Peugeot range. The drive to enter a product in this class came from the increased affluence of the French market which Peugeot felt could accommodate a car more expensive than the 504.

The 604 had several noteworthy attributes. These were its damped and supple ride, equal to a contemporary Jaguar XJ6, its "good handling", its spacious passenger compartment and highly rated steering described as "a model of its kind", "highly accurate" and "one of the finest yet produced". Price at launch was US$10,990. In the UK the car was sold for ₤4,600 (compared to ₤4,999 for a BMW 2500 and ₤3,319 for a Ford Granada 3000 GL). The 604 had unusually wide opening doors which made entry and egress very easy for users. This was especially appropriate for the car in its role as a limousine.

The 604 was considered a critical success but a commercial failure. The production totaled 155,000 units, compared to the similarly priced Rover 3500 whose production total was approximately double that of the 604's. Over 36,000 cars were built in the first full year of production (1976). The launch of the similarly sized but cheaper Peugeot 505 in 1979 along with another oil crisis, halved sales of the V6-engined 604. By 1981 7,000 examples were produced. However Peugeot actually made a profit on each car made, primarily because of the shared tooling and engineering with the 504. Contemporary journalists attributed this relative failure to a variety of reasons, such as the conservative styling, the lack of technical innovation, modest performance, and a reputation for problems with rust. Others pointed out that the recent energy crisis made this an inauspicious time for Peugeot (along with Renault, whose own six-cylinder saloon went on sale a few months earlier) to be moving into the market for six-cylinder saloons. However, by the time the oil shock hit the western economies Peugeot, along with joint venture partners Renault and Volvo, presumably believed they had invested too much in the design and development of production facilities for the new shared engine that would power the 604, to abandon the venture.

The German manufacturers did not hesitate to exploit this confusion in France, with cars like the 1974 BMW 5-Series (which also entered a segment new for the manufacturer) that had relatively good build quality. German cars created an unassailable position in the executive class auto market during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Germans were not challenged again until Japan addressed this segment 15 years later.

France's car manufacturers have had not much success internationally in the executive segment since the Citroën DS's successor, the Citroën CX. The 604-era was perhaps the last point at which PSA Peugeot Citroën could theoretically have focused resources on becoming a viable long term competitor in this lucrative market segment. This is similar to the situation encountered in the US by the Lincoln Town Car.

The 604 was introduced during the recession caused by the 1973 energy crisis, which created a marketplace that was even more unfriendly to large-engined cars in France. Peugeot did launch some detuned economy versions of the 604, but they did not do much to increase the car's overall sales. Peugeot initially tried to convince buyers of the upper-middle class that the 604 had "The engineering of the Mercedes-Benz 280E, the handling of the BMW 5 Series and the elegance of the Jaguar XJ6" but did not convince enough buyers of this proposition.

Sales, which were only strong for a few years after launch, dipped further in 1980 following the launch of the 505, and the last 604 rolled off the production line in 1985 with sales continuing into 1986. Peugeot's next major executive car, the 605, was launched in 1989.

Today the 604 is a rare automobile in United Kingdom - there are only 25 that are road-legal as of 2011, down from 29 on the road in 2009.