In the 20s, car manufacturers attached more and more importance to the line of their cars’ bodywork. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Peugeot is committed to reducing its vehicles’ fuel consumption without compromising on performance!

« A four-cylinder profiled must have the same performances of a traditional six-cylinder », which was the watchword of the Peugeot designer Henri Thomas. He is the creator of the famous « Fuseau Sochaux » line, shown on the front grills in the mid-1930. This line was visible on the Peugeot Darl’Mat at Le Mans.

Until then, aerodynamics is empirical. Thanks to his pieces of knowledge, Charles Deutsch proved the use of aerodynamics on the circuits and contributed to significant progress, such as the line of the Peugeot CDs. CD is the first model to go through wind tunnel tests, it predicted what the racing prototypes looked like in the 1970s. These tests also introduced some bodywork elements still used today: venturi effect, profiling, spoilers, air extractor, rear wing, etc.

All of this was necessary to cross the line of the 400 km/h on the Hunaudières’ straight without taking off. It is widely admitted today that those results are achieved using the rear wing, which is keeping the car on the ground. A missing piece of the future Peugeot 9X8… Which kind of aerodynamic innovations are the engineers of Peugeot holding?