The difference a tune-up, a good cleaning, and lots of quality photos can do! We featured this Peugeot back in September of 2022 when it was being offered on craigslist for $3,950 in Alabama. It’s now located in New Jersey where the seller has done all the work to make it a presentable driver again. The original post is below for easy reference. You can find the current seller’s listing here on eBay in Cream Ridge, New Jersey with an asking price of $9,000.
The French-built Peugeot 505 was a large family car (by European standards) that was available in a variety of body styles from 1979 to 1992. It would be the last rear-wheel-drive automobile the company built. Sometimes unusual for imports, the 505 had a different body and features on models sold in the U.S. and Canada. This ’92 505 station wagon has been off the road for 12 years and hasn’t run in the past 10, so the buyer’s first challenge will be to get it going again. Located in Scottsboro, Alabama, this French transport is available here on craigslist for $3,950 OBO. Thanks for the tip, Pat L.!
Engineering for the 505 was fairly common. Rear-wheel-drive, front-mounted engine, and MacPherson struts and coil springs in the front and semi-trailing arms with coil springs at the rear. Station wagons had a live-axle rear suspension, with Panhard rod and coil springs. Brakes were usually discs up front and drums in the back. Production over 14 years would be more than 1.35 million units of which less than 20% were anything other than sedans (or saloons, as they were called on that side of the Pond).
This car is said to have been in the South all its life, which helps account for a lack of rust on the 30-year-old automobile. The seller acquired the Peugeot from the car’s second owner who owned it from the mid-1990s. It’s said to be an SW8 model, but Peugeot had a lot of designations for its cars and I’m not sure what this tells us. The second owner parked the vehicle in 2010 and would start and drive it every few weeks until it quit turning over in 2012. So, it’s been sitting for a decade.
Under the hood resides a fuel-injected 2.2-liter inline-4 and it’s flanked by an automatic transmission with overdrive. It’s a well-optioned car, including factory air conditioning. The odometer reads 86,000 miles which could very well be accurate. The seller thinks the paint and interior are original, so if you can get this machine running with a minimum of effort, you’d have a wagon not seen every day.
Excellent condition, other than the fact that it doesn’t work…
SW8 means it has seats for three in the far back, facing forward, for a total of 8 passengers.
Designated Familiale (for Family) here in Europe, the third row of seats would only be any good for children. Would like to see any adult in there!
$4k for a non-running 505?? That’s….optimistic.
SW* means it’s an 8-seater, with a third row.
Intetesting. Not many left in Europe either. Peugot went to a lot of trouble engineering their station wagons to maximize load area and ride.
Assuming the car can be made to run easily and the price is less than the ask, this would be a useful vehicle.
It ran when parked. Then it didn’t run. So sad when this happens to a perfectly good car, but at least it appears pretty rust-free.
A nice project for a Francophile automobilist.
Columbo’s grandson perhaps. lol
I don’t know enough about them to really judge if its a good car or not I think its a bit rich on the price for what you getting yourself into good luck to the seller
These things cracked exhaust manifolds and were painfully slow 🐌. On the plus side, they rode like a dream and once you eventually got up to speed, it was easy to be going quicker than you realized. I’d love to have had the opportunity to drive a turbo version, but never did.
This is one of the very last Peugeots imported to the US. Production of US-spec cars ended in September, 1991. I’m curious about the parts situation for something like this.
Any idea why the engine will not turn over?
It’s broken
The parts availability here can’t be good. As they say in Texas, El Paso!
There are a number of online distributors for Peugeots. Mostly UK and other overseas, however; Parts Geek has a number of Peugeot parts. Peugeots are fine automobiles. They are known as the vehicle built for Africa. I had an 85 504 Wagon in Zimbabwe from 1985 – 1990. Was dependable in every way. The Peugeot has “Wet Cylinders,” so not all techs can repair them satisfactorily.
Louis: with the advent of this engine in 1987 the wet-liner design went away; this engine is a bored-block. They did the same with the turbo diesel in 1985; bored-block engine as well.
The 2L wet liner engine was replaced with the 2.2L Renault OHC engine. I think Renault, Peugeot & Citroen formed an engine company for common engines between the three companies.
We had a 2L carb version that used twin carburettors. It had a single-venturi carb for slow running and a separate twin-venturi carb that opened both venturis at the same time for power.
Thats a lot of do-re-mi for a non running car with very limited parts availability. The one thing about French cars, they all had extremely comfortable seats. Ok, maybe not the 2CV, although, who knows? I’d pass while humming Francs for the Memories….
Put a LS in it it’s inevitable!
Missed a black wagon in the Huntsville/Athens Alabama area a couple of years ago- I would consult the people at the Lane Auto museum in Nashville about viability of parts and someone knowing how to open the hood- I think some long haired no account folks in Auburn , Alabama still buy/sell and work on these!
I am suffering enough with my 76 VW bug still running Fuel Injection!😂
I am pretty sure this car is now 11-7 on eBay for $9500 sold by roverclassic.
From a number of angles, looks like my old Loyale AWD Turbo wagon. Always liked the 505 wagon…probably for different reasons.
I had a 505 turbo-gas sedan with a 5 speed manual transmission. The car was incredible. It was rocket fast. It was comfortable. It had a limited slip differential. I pulled my ’86 Honda Accord LXi out of a snow drift with my Peugeot 505 turbo gas. I had it at 150mph on the freeway at 2AM one time. That probably sums up all the times it was running. It got donated. I often wonder if it ever it got a caring home that would take care of it properly.
Traditional (sedan based) station-wagons are looking more and more like hearses to me as time goes by and with almost all current ‘station-wagons’ styled as SUVs. I see this Peugeot and just think hearse, maybe its just me.
These were serious haulers, with the sedan’s IRS replaced by a live axle suspended by trailing arms with dual tandem coil springs on each side — thereby minimizing space intrusion into the cargo hold and increasing payload capacity — and with the clamshell tailgate, raised roof, and back seat folded down, enough space to carry a typical washer-dryer set.
All those pictures of it on the trailer don’t inspire confidence.
Those pics are the old CL ad from September-as this page we are on is the updated Barnfinds article now stating its running and in New Jersey. You may want to go back to the top and read the entire article…
Beautiful automobiles. Its a shame that Peugeot doesn’t have a national presence here in the USA anymore. The Ebay posting has no pics of the interior. Todays listing on 2 french cars on either coast. Its a shame the Citroen is so far away. I would buy it over the Peugeot.
Now that Peugeot and Mopar are together under the Stellantis corporate umbrella, we might well see Peugeots here again… or perhaps more likely, common/related models manufactured and badged as a Dodge or Chrysler here that are otherwise made and sold as a Peugeot, Citroen/DS, Opel/Vauxhall, Fiat, Lancia, or Alfa Romeo abroad.
I bought a new 505 Turbo in 1976. Great car, plush but firm ride, excellent seats. Had enough power to embarrass most any other mid-70s car. Also has a diesel wagon. Turtle slow but almost 40 mpg when cruising on interstate.
I owned three Peugeots in my lifetime. A 404, a 504 diesel, and a 505. All three were fantastic, dependable, well-built, and comfortable automobiles. I vote for bringing them back to the states.