Peugeot 304 - Commercial

Commercial

Launched in 1969, the Peugeot 304 confronted a more competitive market place than the one that had greeted the 204 in 1965. From the start it found itself in a fight for market share with the Renault 12 also introduced at the 1969 motor show: after the launch in 1970 of the Citroën GS competition intensified further. Nevertheless, the entire segment was boosted by the 1973 oil price shock as motorists traded down from larger cars. The Peugeot was particularly popular with the police and other public services both within France and in the Saarland region of Germany where the German Peugeot importer is based and where locally, for historical reasons, Peugeot traditionally enjoyed a level of market penetration usually reserved, at that time, for domestically branded makes.

The 304 saloon remained in production until 1979, by when a saloon version of the Peugeot 305 had been on sale for two years: the break (estate) 304 continued until Summer 1980, by when an estate version of the 305 had been introduced. In 1980, when the last 304 estates had come off the lines at Mulhouse, 1,178,423 Peugeot 304s had been produced: of these, approximately 36% were exported, mostly within Europe: during the 1970s Peugeot was one of several European manufacturers successfully learning to treat the entire EEC region as a single market.

The estate version was also exported to North Africa, where many were deployed as taxis and louages. In Egypt, as of 2009, the estate version of the 304 remains one of the most widespread types of vehicle in taxi service, though the government is hoping to persuade taxi drivers to adopt more recently manufactured, more government-imposed emissions compliant vehicles.