Lion-Peugeot Type V4C3

The Lion-Peugeot Type V4C3 was a motor car produced near Valentigney by the French auto-maker Lion-Peugeot between 1912 and 1913. It was the manufacturer's first car with a four-cylinder engine. 653 were produced.

The V4C3 was propelled using a four-cylinder 1,725 cm³ four-stroke engine, mounted ahead of the driver. This was the first, and till now (2012) the only Peugeot to feature a V4 engine.^[1] A maximum 9 hp of power was delivered to the rear wheels.

The car was the first of several Lion-Peugeot models that became known as a Lion-Peugeot 10 hp. This was a reference to the car's fiscal horse power, applying a system of car classification for taxation purposes then being established in France. Tax horsepower then, and for several decades to come, was defined purely as a function of the combined surface area of the engine's cylinders, this being far easier to assess consistently and accurately than the actual power produced by an engine. At this stage fiscal horse-power tended to equate approximately to actual horse-power, although the two would diverge subsequently, as engines became more efficient at extracting power from a given sum of cylinder diameters. Eventually, in the second half of the twentieth century, more complex (and less internationally consistent) definitions of fiscal horse power would replace those defined only by cylinder diameters.

The V4C3 shared its 2,250 mm wheel base with the manufacturer's models from the previous year such as their twin-cylinder Type V2C3. The 3,200 mm (approximately) body length provided space for between two and four people depending on the body specified. The wide range of different body types offered followed a pattern that by now would have been familiar to many Lion-Peugeot buyers. It included a Phaeton, a Torpedo, a Limousine, a Landaulet, a “Touring Car”, a Coupé, a delivery van and a sports car.