Although some­what for­got­ten today, the Peu­geot 204 cel­e­brat­ed its 60th anniver­sary in 2025. At the time, Peu­geot adopt­ed a sin­gle-mod­el strat­e­gy. Although the 404, with its mod­ern design and robust­ness, was a resound­ing suc­cess, Peu­geot did­n’t real­ly offer a car acces­si­ble to the gen­er­al pub­lic until the arrival of the Peu­geot 204 in April 1965, which felt like a small rev­o­lu­tion. The car was­n’t designed by Pin­in­fa­ri­na and was front-wheel dri­ve!

The 1965 Peugeot 204
Image: Rudolf Stricker

Dinky Toys part­nered with Peu­geot, which led to an imme­di­ate reduc­tion in pro­duc­tion of this new mod­el. The first mod­els were pre­sent­ed in a blue box and were white in col­or. This ver­sion, now very rare, was­n’t select­ed by Atlas, which offers a repli­ca of the stan­dard mod­el.

As usu­al, Dinky Toys offers a mag­nif­i­cent repro­duc­tion of the orig­i­nal car that show­cas­es its beau­ti­ful lines and numer­ous details. The engine hood opens and the head­lights are fit­ted with plas­tic lens­es, enhanc­ing the mod­el’s real­ism. In 1977, the mold was adjust­ed, and the rear bumper was now a sin­gle piece, in accor­dance with Peu­geot’s restyling.

Atlas’s repli­ca cap­tures the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the orig­i­nal mod­el and is quite suc­cess­ful over­all. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the metal­lic red paint does­n’t cov­er the body even­ly, mak­ing some of the details stand out exces­sive­ly. The wheels are also a rather fan­ci­ful design. Final­ly, the chas­sis reveals the mod­el’s Chi­nese ori­gin, where­as the orig­i­nal was labeled Mec­ca­no.

The Norev mod­el adheres to cur­rent stan­dards, mean­ing it’s packed with details, some a bit crude like the wind­shield wipers, but it has no open­ing parts. The front grille is repro­duced with great finesse, and the inte­ri­or, already well-detailed in Dinky Toys mod­els, is here repro­duced down to the small­est detail. Strange­ly, the tail­lights aren’t made of translu­cent red plas­tic but are paint­ed.

Indi­vid­ual pic­tures of the Atlas and Norev mod­els fol­low.

The pic­tures below include a por­tion of the roofs.

Final­ly, a com­par­i­son of the roofs and under­body are shown.

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Note

This is an updat­ed ver­sion of the author’s orig­i­nal arti­cle “Petite Rev­o­lu­tion” pub­lished in May 2015.