Author: Mike Tippett

The Peugeot addiction can be hard to understand to some; however, for others it is a natural outgrowth of happy circumstances. This is the case with my addiction…

It all began with my father, Eric Tippett, who in 1960 was posted to France with the RCAF. He was a Flight Lieutenant, a fighter controller, and yet with a young family (me and my mum!) and the pay rates of the day, money was not plentiful. He told me much later that he wanted to buy a 404 sedan after first seeing one in mid-1960, because they looked so elegant! However, three years into the Metz posting, the jig was up and he came back to Montréal with his 1960 French domestic market Dauphine.

As the Renault slowly dissolved in the Canadian salt and snow, and my sister arriving in September 1965, the time to get a new car had come. Fortunately, the pay rates for RCAF officers had improved and that, combined with a local assembly plant not 5 km from where we lived, was all he needed. It turned out that our veterinarian had a 404, KF2 Injection model, and he regaled my Dauphine driving Dad with stories of driving to Québec City from Montréal at 100 MPH. In mid-1966, the car was bought, a bronze metallic 404 KF2 Injection with tan leather seats. It was a great car, ultimately let down only by inadequate rustproofing measures. He had that car for six years and sold it to another Canadian officer when our family was leaving another foreign posting in the Netherlands. After that it was a pair of 504s but the 404 remained his favourite.

In 1977 I came across this car for sale in downtown Vancouver – the asking price was $3800 and as a high school student, I didn’t have it. Until then I had no idea that 404C models had ever been sold here. This car exists today in the USA. This car will be going up for auction in early 2023 by Kraft Auctions in their 46th anniversary Antique and Collectible auction in Indiana.

In 1979 I saw another 404 Coupé in Vancouver, fleetingly in traffic. It was white. The front bumper was off. I was unable to turn around to chase the owner down….More on that car later….

As a Canadian, trying to find solid 404s in our country is a bit of a fool’s errand – if a car has been driven year-round, it will be corroded and ten years of that will seriously compromise the car. But I wanted a 404 one day, so in 1981 upon returning from three months in Europe, I saw one for sale, and although it was a lot worse than the one in the 1977 photo above, it was only $2500. So I bought it and was for the first time a 404 owner!” One day when washing that car, a woman came by and said that her former boyfriend had one very much like it, and it was white.

This car was actually quite rusty and it also had some godawful protection strips riveted to the side of the car. But it was a real 404 Coupé Injection, and like all the Canadian cars, it came with a Nardi floor shifter. I had thought that I’d restore the car one day, and I even had some interim welding done to the undercarriage to keep it going, but it became evident that it was a more or less lost cause and when a Toyota pickup backed into it destroying the driver’s side front fender (guard), flaking great slabs of Bondo off at the time, I sold it for $1300 in 1985. A subsequent owner scrapped this car in 1996.

After the amazing rust that the grey 404C had, I told myself that I’d not have another, as the Pininfarina metal does not last well. So I asked Jay’s British and European Motors – where the car was photographed in 1977 – if they knew anyone with a 404 sedan and to my surprise I got a lead. A 1963 model the family had owned for 22 years. Not too rusty, as it was from California and had only been driven in British Columbia for a few years. $250 later I was back in business. This car was converted to KF2 Injection by me in 1987, as well as a floor shifter, both of which had come out of a scrapped red 404 Cabriolet in Vancouver.

This car was a daily driver for five years. One thing to remember about California cars, they may not be visibly rusty, but they are slowly rusting even in that State, and if you drive them daily in a moist climate with salted roads, they will very quickly start aging.

Once again, I harboured dreams of restoring this car after we were finished using it as a daily driver, even buying some new floors from Germany from Peugeot. But in 1990, rust had compromised the car to the point where jacking up one corner blocked all the doors, so it was scrapped.

Meanwhile, in 1986 I was told about another 404 Coupé for sale, and it was the white car that I had seen in 1979 and heard about in 1981. The bad news was that the owner was wanting $2900 for the car. It seemed to be in decent condition at a glance, but the owner told me that he had it repainted cheaply in 1979 (that was around the time I saw it on the road without a front bumper) and it needed some body repair. I advertised it for the owner in the USA-based Peugeot Owners’ Club but no-one offered anything on it.

In 1989 I heard that the car had been pushed out of the shop that the owner had it in and was sitting outside. Our first child had just been born and the blue 404 sedan was evidently getting rusty, so I contacted the owner of the white car and asked him if he’d take $500 for the car. He thought about it for a second or two but accepted the offer, mainly because it was accompanied by a promise: I would someday restore this car to its former glory and show it to the fellow I was buying it from. The deal was sealed and it was mine!

This is the car that I have been collecting new parts for since even before I owned it, and which I am in the process of restoring. Resto details will start in Part Two.