Back to the future: Peugeot 405 Coupe by Heuliez
Mon, 02 Feb 2026
The automotive world is full of might-have-beens and if-onlys, but the Pininfarina-styled Peugeot 405 Coupe must rank among the most obvious missed opportunities of the late 1980s.
The car debuted at the 1988 Geneva Motor Show on the stand of Heuliez, a French coachbuilder that had a longstanding relationship with PSA Peugeot-Citroen and, at the time, was making most of its money by building the Citroen BX estate on the company’s behalf.
The Peugeot 405 Coupe was another attempt to build a niche model that would become part of the parent company’s model range. And because it wanted Peugeot to sit up and take notice, the 405 Coupe was finished to production standard, registered and fully road legal. All Peugeot had to do was say ‘yes’ and Heuliez was ready to go, turning out an even more striking version of an already pretty car.
Alas, as with any car company, for Peugeot to say ‘yes’ involved an entire committee of decision makers to also say ‘yes’ and that unanimous agreement never happened. The car had its backers in the company, not least because there were many who remembered the old 504 Coupe with affection. But ultimately Peugeot decided that there was no market for a two-door based on a family saloon and Heuliez’s stunning concept car became a museum piece.
What happened next was a resurgence in the coupe market, led by the 1989 Vauxhall/Opel Calibra, that would no doubt have given the two-door Peugeot 405 a place in the market. Enough, in fact, for Peugeot to review the project internally, only for Heuliez to say no – it had won the contract to build the new Citroen XM estate by then and no longer had the production capacity to see it through.
It’s quite telling that a coupe version of the Peugeot 406, launched in 1997, was integral to the model range from the start and was also styled by Pininfarina.
But what of the 405 Coupe itself? Heuliez ventured into the folding hardtop market in the 2000s building the Peugeot 206CC and Vauxhall Tigra among others - and not doing a tremendous job of it. Failed roof mechanisms and water leaks did the cars manufacturers no favours and by 2010 Heuliez was in trouble, having not realised the revenue it expected from its less-than-watertight investment.
In 2011, the company went bankrupt and all of its assets were auctioned off. Among them was the 405 Coupe, which was sold for a very reasonable €8340. The buyer? Peugeot.
The car now lives in the Aventure Peugeot museum across the road from the manufacturer’s factory in Sochaux, where it rubs shoulders with the first Peugeot 406 Coupe off the line.
