From the same file of curiosities that previously brought you this MINI rubber johnny, I present you a French fancy I picked up in the late ’90s.

Some of you probably know, I quite enjoy looking at old car brochures. Reading them several years after a model has departed often gives us a better idea of the intent that the manufacture originally put behind their product. Some brochures are heavy on facts, some are closer to art pamphlets. Some just trot out line upon line of brain-mushing hyperbole that nobody in their right mind could have possibly ever believed.

Sometimes, though, when a car is released, or soon-to-be released, a company will do something different to fire our imagination. Let’s get a bit more animated about this after the jump.

I would have gathered this up at some point between 1998 and 2000, I really can’t remember whether from a motor show or a car dealership, though I believe the former is more likely. It was certainly prior to the release of the car it was promoting, though, as we can see from the identity, Peugeot 20♡. There was apparently some uncertainty as to what name Peugeot’s replacement for the venerable and insanely successful 205 series would carry. Of course, 206 was the logically unsurprising answer.

The 20♡, or two-oh-heart (which sounds terrible) or deux-zero-couer (which sounds better, though automatically pretentious) had been exhibited in 1998 at the Geneva motor show, and the production ready model, which was very similar indeed aside from a few expensive details, was called 206CC.  It’s big, class-leading feature was the automated folding hard-top which deconstructed itself neatly and fluidly at the touch of a button. In fact, it wasn’t the first time a Peugeot had enjoyed this facility.

Let’s take a look at how they reminded us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3TjxYRCESo

I love this little flickbook. It’s such an inexpensive, easy thing to produce and then distribute broadly, but it’s just such a nice item. The animation, providing you can flick through it more smoothly than in my awkward effort above (trying to hold the camera in position by clamping it between my neck and chin was unwise in hindsight) is smooth and gives a real feel for the grace that the mechanism was intended to exude. It also serves as a link to the past, to put the new model into some kind of historical context.

The only negative I would declare is the unfortunate own-goal that Peugeot unwittingly scored, by reminding us just how elegant the cars of their distant past were in comparison to anything they could offer as the millennium approached. But then the 402 Eclipse Coupe was an especially attractive car even for its time, so we’ll deem the comparative nondescriptness of the 206cc to be more a general fault of progress than anything else.

Let’s call for a show and tell. Please feel free to share in the comments section something promotional that you’ve collected from a car show and cherish to this day.

[Image and Video Copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Chris Haining, original publicity material copyright belongs to Peugeot. Thanks ]