Armand Peugeot

Biography

Armand Peugeot was born in Hérimoncourt, near Montbéliard, in 1849, into a family of manufacturers; sources give different days for his birth. He graduated from the École Centrale engineering school in Paris. From 1865 he and his cousin Eugène helped run the family business, then called Peugeot Frères Aînés.

A trip to England in 1881 convinced him that bicycles had a future, and the firm began making them in 1882. At the 1889 World's Fair in Paris it showed a steam-powered tricycle with a Serpollet steam engine. In the early 1890s its cars switched to Daimler petrol engines.

On 2 April 1896 Armand set up his own car company, the Société Anonyme des Automobiles Peugeot, with a factory at Audincourt for cars with internal combustion engines. He later agreed to merge it with Eugène's business. When he stepped down in 1913, Peugeot was the largest car maker in France, producing 10,000 cars a year. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 2 January 1915; the Automotive Hall of Fame accepted him in 1999.