Peugeot 404 VIN registry

[Mike T]

Hi guys

Well I thought I should post a link here to the 404 registry that I am doing with Le Club 404 in France. It has been going quite well so far, especially with the 404 C models, of which we have accounted for 8.4% of the total production.

The basic statistics on the cars are visible here (slightly out of date, my webmaster is too busy to update it):

basic statistics

Cars already in the database can be queried here:

search on a VIN

The formats of 404 C VINs, for example are: 4495xxx, 459xxxx, 467xxxx and 680xxxx.

The data can be entered here:

enter a new VIN in the registry

Thanks for helping out in this project, in the 404's 50th year!

[N9TE]

Wow, only 41 US cars. Do you have production numbers? That would be nice as well.

No English cars?

Keep up the good work!

Koll

[Mike T]

I have 7 404 Coupé/Cabriolet cars from Great Britain, plus 8 404 Sedans/Wagons/Pickups in Great Britain.

There are 15 404 Sedans/Wagons from the USA on my list, as well as 32 404 Coupés and Cabriolets. So 47 total.

So yeah, the statistics page is out of date!

Please let any 404 owners you know of in on this project. I think there may be another 20 or so 404 Cs in the USA and a couple hundred other 404s, mostly unloved/unrestored.

Thanks!

[Mike T]

The total number of 404 Coupé and Cabriolet cars accounted for to date is 1447.

Other 404s: 961.

We're about to get quite a few new 404s as well, from Africa.

[Mike T]

Make that 1464 404 C cars and 1014 other 404s.

[Mike T]

How does 1472 404 C cars sound? And 1021 other 404s.

[N9TE]

How does 1472 404 C cars sound? And 1021 other 404s.

Awesome. I'm going to start up a 505 registry. I know it sounds silly, but now is the right time to do this.

You should show off your 404 Coupe on a separate thread here. Some of the best lines to come out of Pinin farina.

[Mike T]

Starting a 505 Registry is a great idea! Online ads are a good source (not for 404 VINs though!).

My car is not so pretty now because she needs a restoration....so I won't start a separate thread for her.

I haven't got any more 404 C cars since my last post, but I have got nineteen more other 404s!

[Mike T]

Now it's at:

1489 404 Coupé and Cabriolet cars

1082 404s of other body types

I'm looking to hit the 1500 mark for 404 CC cars by late spring......

[Mike T]

Latest total is 1497 Coupés and Cabriolets as well as 1094 other 404s.

33 of those Cabriolets are in the USA and one of the Coupés (Jim Schlick's).

[Mike T]

I finally surpassed the 1500 figure for 404 Coupés and Cabriolets - the total now sits at 1501!

The registry for other 404s is doing well too: 1099 cars!

51 of these are in the USA.....

For the full statistics, check out this page:

Registry Stats

The country names are in French.....Pays Bas is the Netherlands and Allemagne is Germany, for those who don't know. "CC" under car type means it is a 404 C but we're not sure if it's a Cabriolet or Coupé.

[Mike T]

The total for Coupés and Cabriolets is now 1522 cars. For the other 404s it's 1146.

I am working on the Club in Italy, which offers the promise of another 9 404 Cs and 29 other 404s.

Here is where the 1522 404 C cars are located:

1124 France

101 Netherlands

97 Germany

34 USA

30 Belgium

20 Switzerland

10 Spain

10 South Africa

9 Canada

9 Austria

8 Great Britain

7 Greece

7 New Zealand

7 Finland

6 Australia

5 Sweden

5 Norway

5 Italy

4 Portugal

3 Luxembourg

2 Morocco

2 New Caledonia

2 Serbia

2 Denmark

2 Tunisia

1 Ireland

1 Madagascar

1 Turks and Caicos

1 Costa Rica

1 Colombia

1 Paraguay

1 Venezuela

1 Slovenia

1 Hungary

1 Poland

1 Nicaragua

1522 TOTAL

[andrethx]

this is a really great resource -- you're doing the lord's work, mike.

with the way that 505s are disappearing from north america, koll and i have been discussing setting up a 505 registry (see above). aside from the online ad VIN thing, do you have any technical advice? how did you get started on the database?

thanks,

andré

ps -- what color is your 404's interior -- is it white?

[norcal505]

I'd be so happy with a 505 registry.

Though they may have been plentiful (by Peugeot standards), they are scarce as hell now.

[Mike T]

with the way that 505s are disappearing from north america, koll and i have been discussing setting up a 505 registry (see above). aside from the online ad VIN thing, do you have any technical advice? how did you get started on the database?

ps -- what color is your 404's interior -- is it white?

André, the interior of my 404 C is dark blue velours. Well it was dark in 1966. It too needs to be totally redone.

You SHOULD do a 505 database! On the technical thing, I simply set up an Excel spreadsheet where each row represents an individual vehicle, each column is a piece of data about the car. My column structure is:

Serial No.

Carrosserie Number

Type (body style)

Engine Type

In-service date

Purchase date

Body Colour

Interior Colour

Photo (put a flag in the cell if there is a photo of the car - I use the serial number as the photo name)

Mechanical condition 1-5 (1=show, 5 = practically a wreck) - assessed from photos or the owner's reckoning

Body condition 1-5

Interior condition 1-5

Notes (long free form field for entering extra information on options, previous owners, special equipment...)

Owner Name

Postal Code

City/State/Province

Country

Previous Owner 1, Date

Postal Code 1

City/State/Province 1

The previous owner fields are added to as needed, for the 404 Registry I have up to four known previous owners of some cars! They're easy to add as they're at the end of the table structure.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet I have a number of formulas to mine/summarize the data. For example, there is a count of cars by country, by colour, by body type, by engine, and I also mine the "Notes" field for certain key things like sunroof, Nardi floor shifter etc. For the 505 you could decide what you want to have summarized there.

I sort the 404 records by the 7 digit serial numbers. For the 505s with the long VINs, you could do that too, but they were in production for a long time so if the format changed over the years you might want to sort by model year (using the "MID" function in Excel), it's easy enough and if you need help, let me know.

You might want to have a separate field for State/Province, because I imagine most of the cars would be in North America, but you probably should consider adding European models too (though their VIN format is probably different).

My list started off with about 6 cars on it years ago and it's turned into a monster, but it's great to have all these data on the cars. I would note that the late Jim Bell of California started a US-based 404 C Registry in the eighties too and his data are now incorporated into mine. Le Club 404 had by far the most data to add: 1195 cars were in their database when I first got it. Now I am doing the Registry for them. 327 have been added since I got that!

I think you should get going on this and let me know if I can help somehow.

[andrethx]

this is very helpful, mike, thanks.

question -- when someone completes the "submit car" form on the website, does that info get sent to you as a formatted email message, or is something more complicated going on? do you then manually paste the info into your spreadsheet, or do you have something more sophisticated set up?

thanks,

andré

[Mike T]

It's set up to dump loaded information into a static form, which is then reviewed by me. Once you start posting links around the WWW for the Registry, you will get spambots throwing crap at it, so it's important to manage the new inputs manually, otherwise your database will fill up with crap. Fortunately the new (legitimate) entries are relatively infrequent so it's not a big deal, really.

[Mike T]

The total is now 1533, I got 7 more from Italy alone! This is fun, really!

[Mike T]

I have got 24 more in the past week. The US total is up to 39 cars now, but I think there may be around 80 in the country.

[N9TE]

Nice. Do you correspond with each entry these days? Seeing the total number is so (relatively) small?

[Mike T]

A lot of the numbers are submitted anonymously so I can't. In other cases I certainly do. It's a mixed bag. As of earlier this week, our online registry upload allows users to also load a photo of their car. I am working towards getting a photo of every car in the Registry.

[Mike T]

Here are a couple more, with photos this time:

4497419, a Cabriolet with Carbuator engine, non-original red, location: STUTTGART GERMANY

4599606, a Cabriolet Injection 1967, Bleu Mendoza 1134 and Leather "Tabac", location: RANCAGUA CHILE

Total: 1560!

[andrethx]

nice.

question, mike -- those auxiliary lights in the grills of many of the 404s i see -- factory option? dealer installed? aftermarket? they look pretty cool.

andré

[Mike T]

1967 and 1968 models had them from the factory. The grille was enlarged to accommodate them and the bumper was raised, plus a new panel below the bumper was installed.

The lights are driving lights by Cibié, which were additional to the regular 7 inch high beams.

These light units are identical to the high beam units of the 1969-1974 504 C models.

[Mike T]

Got a few more from Sweden, the total is now 1579!