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The Peugeot 309 was a small family car manufactured between 1985 and 1993 in England, Spain and France by PSA Peugeot Citroën. It was originally intended to be badged as a Talbot and, as development progressed, to be called the Talbot Arizona.〔Musée de l'Aventure Peugeot. The exhibit label (2012) states candidly: «Prévu d’abord de succéder à la Talbot Horizon sous le nom de Talbot Arizona, on a choisi de l’appeler Peugeot 309. Choix motivé par des raisons de marketing, la marque Talbot affichait des résultats catastrophiques, et les Peugeot de génération 5 avait déjà une 305. »〕 It was the replacement for the Talbot Horizon, which had started life as a Chrysler in Britain and a Simca in France, and was also being built in several guises for the American market. In 1985, the PSA Group decided to discontinue the Talbot brand, with the last Talbot passenger vehicle to be launched being the Samba of 1981, and to market the car as a Peugeot instead. The Talbot brand was phased out completely when Talbot Express production stopped in the early 1990s. == History == Production in France began at the former Simca plant in Poissy in late summer of 1985, with the first French customers getting their cars in October of that year; but it was decided that RHD models would be built at the Ryton plant near Coventry, England, which had previously been owned by the Rootes Group and then Chrysler Europe before Peugeot took it over in 1978. The first 309 for the British market rolled off the production line at Ryton in October 1985 and sales began early in 1986. The 309 was not intended to replace Peugeot's own 305 model, but the out-of-step model number (the next small family car after the 305 should have been named "306") was intended to distance it from the larger 305 in the marketplace and to reflect the car's Simca origins. With the Talbot brand being phased out on passenger cars, the 309 would succeed the Talbot Horizon. Peugeot had been considering a new Talbot Samba based on the forthcoming Citroën AX supermini, but the success of the Peugeot 205 meant that there was little need for a third supermini within the PSA combine and so the Samba was discontinued in 1986 with no replacement. The larger Alpine hatchback and Solara saloons were also axed in 1986, a year before Peugeot began production of the similar-sized 405, successor to the 305. The 309's design was presaged by the 1982 Peugeot VERA Plus (followed by the VERA Profil in 1985), which were aerodynamic studies developed by Peugeot at the time. The VERA Plus claimed a Cw of only 0.22. Many of the aerodynamic features from the VERA studies found their way into later production Peugeots. The 309's slightly awkward styling (especially when compared with the 205 and 405 of the same era) was due to the decision to re-use the door shells from the 205. The 309 was also supposed to be differentiated from Peugeot as a Talbot, and was designed "in-house". Other Peugeot cars were designed by the famed Italian design house Pininfarina, up until the introduction of the 206 in 1998. The notched-hatchback design bears an unintentional similarity to the Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance, which were also developed, entirely separately and cut-down from a larger (Chrysler K-Car) platform rather than stretched from a smaller one, to replace the Horizon in North America. The initial engine line-up in the United Kingdom market consisted of the chain-driven Simca-derived 1118 cc (E1A) and 1294 cc (G1A) overhead valve petrol units from the Horizon, and Peugeot-provided 1769/1905 cc diesel and 1580/1905 cc petrol belt-driven overhead camshaft XU units. Some markets also used the 1442 cc (Y2) and 1592 cc (J2) "Poissy engine", as seen previously in the Simca 1307 and Solara as well as the Horizon, instead of the 1580 cc OHC. The XU 1905 cc 130BHP engine was used in the very highly regarded high performance GTI version of the 309 in fuel injection form; this quickly established itself as the class leading hot hatch of its time, thanks to a better balanced chassis set-up than the, already excellent handling, Peugeot 205 GTI and very quick acceleration. The 309 was also significant in that it was the first Peugeot car to be assembled in the former Rootes factory in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, which Peugeot had inherited with its buyout of Chrysler Europe in 1978. Largely due to its partially British origins, the 309 became a popular choice in the United Kingdom, and in 1987 it was joined on the production line by the larger 405. The 309's successor, the 306, was also built at Ryton, as was the 206, which was the last vehicle in production there when the plant closed in December 2006. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peugeot 309」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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