The “0″ of Peugeot cars
Posted: December 14th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Mundane things always hide elements that are not obvious when you see them for the first time. Peugeot cars names have always been curious to me with their “x0x” nomenclatural label. A sunday in a small village in France enabled me to document this more thoroughly and wonder about it. There is a indeed a curious reason for this convention with a mid “O”: at the time when Peugeot brothers invented their car models, starting the engine was done by turning a handle/crank. Drivers needed to turn a crank that they had to put in a hole in the front of the car. The “O” of the Peugeot car name is thus a remnant from this time.
Why do I blog this? Nothing really digital here, curious observation though. It’s yet another interesting example of a process that I am trying to follow and document: the circulation of cultural elements as theorized by Basile in this paper. Hope that can be useful for him.
You could also add that this Zero in middle position still has a use on their upper level model: on the 607 the zero is used to open the trunk. It is absolutely hidden when you don’t know it.
[...] but I tend to have a glance at car culture as an interesting locus for design issues (as addressed here for [...]