ROADTEST
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PEUGEOT 504
• Strange chaps, pickup buyers. Some of them will only buy a vehicle if it's a Ford, and they push the registrations up when Ford have a product on the market — the P100, for example. Others take a long-term view, and are happy to buy pickups of any marque, maintaining a steady registration base of vehicles from Peugeot, Bedford, and latterly the Japanese manufacturers.
This explains why Peugeot's market share bobs and weaves about while its registrations figure in this country remains fairly constant.
In 1984 the UK one-tonne 4x2 pickup market was 12,488 units with Ford taking the major share at around 40%. Peugeot sold 2,790 units giving it 22.3% of the market. Two years later, when Ford stopped importing the P100, the market had fallen to only 8,087 units. Peugeot sold 2,363 pickups to take 29.2% share of the market, while Ford sold half its 1984 volume and took only 23.9%.
• BODYWORK
It is not easy to criticise a model as wellestablished as the 504 pickup. Peugeot traditionally uses its longer-established passenger car bodyshells as a basis for its pickups, which gives the 504GL a familiar and settled feel.
From the front, the bodywork looks very French with its slanted headlamps and deep windscreen. The monocoque is constructed of a fairly heavy gauge steel, and there is a sturdy feel to the vehicle as a whole.
At the rear is a tailgate strong enough to stand on while loading, with catches that clamp the whole of the rear body together to prevent rattles. The load bed is painted to match the body and looks a bit vulnerable to scratching, but a load finer is available from dealers.
The 1,195kg payload is quite respectable, and means that over a tonne can be :carried with three passengers on board. A useful ladder rack is fitted to cope with long loads, while lift-up load stops on the top of the frame facilitate tying down. rotary injection pump. It delivers 51.5kW at 4,500rpm, compared with the Mitsubishi's 51kW at 4,500rpm and the Mazda's 48kW at 4,000rpm. The gearbox is the Peugeot 400BA7 all-synchromesh unit with five forward gears. A conventional propellor shaft takes the drive to the rear axle, which is fitted with a hypoid, limited slip differential.
• ECONOMY
When we last tested a Peugeot 504, in 1983, we accorded it the title Pickup Exceptionel', partly out of respect for its creditable fuel consumption of 8.91it/ 100km (31.7mpg). Since then Peugeot has made some changes; the gearbox now has five speeds with an overdrive top gear and the final drive ratio has been changed from 4.22:1 to 4.875:1.
Apart from this the pickup remains largely unchanged, but on this occasion it could only manage 9.51it/1001cm (29.8mpg) when fully laden round our Kent light van test route.
When asked about this discrepancy Peugeot asserted that the five-speed