Start with what the Peugeot 301 is: a 4-door saloon / 2-door cabriolet / 2-door coupé / 3-door van with 1465 cc straight-four, built from 1932 to 1936, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
The Peugeot 301 is a four-cylinder large family car produced by Peugeot between 1932 and 1936. The original 301 can be seen either as a belated replacement for the Type 177, which had not been on sale since 1928, or as a return by Peugeot to that market segment after having left it for four years. It was replaced in 1936 by the Peugeot 302.
The engineering
The engine is 1465 cc straight-four. On the scales it comes to 1070 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. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Peugeot line-up the Peugeot 301 has a clear place: it replaced the Peugeot Type 177; it handed the line to the Peugeot 302; the factory was PSA Sochaux Plant. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Bugatti Type 57, the Chevrolet Suburban, the Bugatti Type 41 sedanca. Its Peugeot stablemates include the Peugeot Onyx and the Peugeot Pars.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Peugeot 301 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.