This is the Peugeot 156, built between 1921-1923. It can be viewed immediately in the by the way very interesting Peugeot museum near the highway Mühlhausen - Beaune respectively Dijon. Why this Peugeot worthy of your attention? Actually, not so much because of its nearly 6-liter six-cylinder in valveless Knight construction.

No, this car is the 'carrier' of a first diesel test engine, the Peugeots claim to be at least the second oldest diesel passenger car manufacturer therewith justifies a little. The 156 was equipped experimentally with a two-cylinder two-stroke engine in 1922, and the Peugeot company justified their claim therewith to have worked on this technology for cars yet before Mercedes.

However, there are restrictions because Peugeot speaks of a heavy fuel engine with spark plug here. For this purpose, one must know that the start especially of the smaller diesel engines was anything but routine, if one can describe this as such at all. Mercedes has at least needed three attempts to offer such an engine 1936.

So we remain to designate this first motor as diesel. It has very soon passed its first practical test on the race Paris - Bordeaux and back with at least 70 km/h maximum speed. A total of 100 engines have been installed in 156 Torpedos.

One had finished the first real self-igniter with 2.3 liters displacement then in 1936, at least for the streamlined Peugeot 402. The had well proved successful in Africa, but it went not in production. Incidentally, the Mercedes 260 D was only reasonable for a taxi company.