French automaker Peugeot is apparently considering following its competitor Renault by introducing a new, low-cost subsidiary aimed at emerging markets in order to boost the automaker’s overall global production to 4 million cars a year by 2010.
Renault, which now fully owns the Romanian Dacia brand which it helped start in the 1960s, has enjoyed considerable success in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, India and Brazil with the low-cost brand. According to France’s La Tribune, the budget brand may be named Talbot, a very old, once British brand that has been owned by Peugeot since the late 1970s but hasn’t been used since 1992.
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09/02, 2:08 PM
posted by:
beatusmongous
Wow. Talbot coming back? So many resurrections of old brands lately. Kind of cool in a way, but I don’t know.
09/03, 12:11 AM
posted by:
thegriffon
Peugeot has maintained registrations for both the Sunbeam and Talbot trademarks and has only recently sold Panhard et Levassor to French military 4×4 company Auverland.
Talbot was most recently used on certain Peugeot models in some European markets. It was part of the old cross-channel Sunbeam-Talbot-Darraqc group, later part of the Chrysler operations in Europe and Latin America acquired by Peugeot. Peugeot acquired a number of British and French marques with the purchase, including SIMCA, Talbot, Darraqc, Clement, Hillman, Humber and Sunbeam. The former Peugoet plant in England was formerly Peugeot Talbot Motor Co., Ltd., and before that Sunbeam-Talbot Ltd. operated in the UK, however Talbot et Cie. was actually French, not British (the Talbot-Lago coupes are particularly noteworthy). The trademarks for most of these names have of course lapsed for lack of use (there is no entity identified with them in the public mind), but copyrights for the logos and badge designs is another matter.
09/03, 12:30 PM
posted by:
inline6
Is this the return of the Talbot marque?