The term “Sportswagon” brings to mind a sort of 4-wheeled centaur, half work-horse, half sports car. Its modern archetype was the handsome Volvo 1800ES but Peugeot adopted the suffix Sportswagon for their 5-door version of its 405 sedan. Not surprisingly, it’s hardly the typical family transport, but rather an interpretation thereof that was uniquely and typically – French.
The 405 Sportswagon was closely related to its sedan sibling, so much so that the two shared the same wheelbase, width, height, track and designer: Pininfarina. The only major difference between them was length; at 175.0 in., the Sportswagon was actually 3.0 in. shorter than the sedan.
There’s no question that the 405 Sportswagon was a distinctive alternative for those in search of a family car that transcends the blandness typically associated with the breed. One would wonder what might have been created had Peugeot married the potent Mi 16 engine with one of the AWD systems offered on its home market 405s.
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