John Strizek wrote on 10/16/07 in amazement about the blue Peugeot PX-10 selling for $3500 on eBay. In case it was not mentioned, there was a lot of discussion on this topic for the few days following October 4, so check the archives.
I posted a message on Oct 5 about the Peugeot Prestige frame shop, hoping to stimulate some discussion about the causes of the brand's underdog status. The response was pretty feeble.
My theory about Peugeot is that if they had obsessed more about their workmanship and finish, and charged more for their bikes, and not produced so many and distributed them so widely, the brand would be more highly esteemed today. It seems their very success at turning the decent-quality bike into a commodity ultimately lowered their status. (It is ironic that the French, who I thought practically invented snobbery and elitism; the French, from whom we get the term "connoisseur", should find themselves thus disdained). An obvious solution to this state of affairs would have been to create a company within a company to cater to the high end of the market. I thought perhaps this had been the idea behind the formation of the Prestige frame shop.
Superimpose on this Thevenet's victory in the 1975 Tour de France. What company ad-man could have dreamed up a better scenario? "The Lion of France, harried by Italian jackals and English bulldogs, retreats to its lair and creates, in 1974, the Prestige frame shop. Here an elite corps of the finest artisans, sworn to allegiance and secrecy, laboring day and night, draws from the fires of the French bicycle industry a supreme weapon, forged under the hammers of adversity, born of the blood and sweat and sinew of honest French workers, and anointed with tears of sheer effort shed by their highest corporate officers. Those unwitting British tubing makers, long since suborned through their pride and avarice, have been played upon by the wily French as a violin, to produce the legendary 531 tubing rolled to French metric specifications. Too late, if at all, would the ox-like British shopkeeper realize his folly in helping thus to fashion the engine of his own defeat. By the following year the tool is ready. It is perfect in every detail, drilled and polished, engraved with many curious runes, shielded from oxidation by inscrutable processes and incantations, and painted in royal tones compounded to last unfading for a thousand years. The French-language Reynolds decals, perfectly fused to the underlying paint and clear-coated with a new formulation of crystalline hardness and clarity, add a final touch of subtle Gallic hauteur. Upon this shining steed the heroic Thevenet rides to inevitable, glorious victory. And all this can be yours, my friend, for only a few more sous than those thieving Italians have the temerity to ask for their second-rate hardware, which they cobble together in those dusty shacks they call workshops."
Sorry-got carried away there. In browsing the collection of road test articles on the Wool Jersey website, I came across the article from October 1975 about Bernard Thevenet's PY-10, with which he won the Tour de France. This article paints an entirely different picture than my ad-man fairy tale above. The central startling fact is that Thevenet's bike (which we may suppose came out of the new Prestige frame shop) was totally, utterly, ordinary: a typical Peugeot with typically sloppy finish. Stock everything, no drillium, no pantographing, no special anything. So the idea of a super-class of Peugeots of inherently greater quality and value, although quite reasonable in concept, vanishes in the harsh light of reality. C'est la vie.
John "out of touch" Hurley
Austin, Texas USA