Start with what the Peugeot 201 is: a 4-door saloon / other bodies available with 1085 cc – 1465cc I4, built from 1929 to 1937, the vintage years, when coachbuilders still shaped most of what was sold. What it meant takes a little longer.
Where it came from
The Peugeot 201 is a car produced by Peugeot between 1929 and 1937. The car was manufactured at the company's Sochaux plant near the Swiss frontier, and is today celebrated in the adjacent Peugeot museum. Although Peugeot had produced a petrol/gasoline-powered motor vehicle as early as 1886, the Peugeot 201 may reasonably be seen as the company's first mass-produced model.
Under the skin
The engine is 1085 cc – 1465cc I4. On the scales it comes to 890 kg. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 247 cm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
In the Peugeot line-up the Peugeot 201 has a clear place: it replaced the Peugeot Type 190; it handed the line to the Peugeot 202; the factory was Sochaux, France. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Maserati Type V4, the British Motor Corporation Morris Isis, the DKW Typ 4=8. Nearby in the Peugeot catalogue sit the Peugeot Onyx and the Peugeot Pars.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Peugeot 201 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.