It’s Tuesday, about 13:30 (somewhere on Planet Earth) and we’re getting a bit hungry. Let’s reach into the lunchbox box of time, negotiate our way past the crisps of indifference and pull out a fascinating sandwich. Today’s priceless document concerns the Pick-Up version of a perennial Hooniverse favourite, the Peugeot 504. If that’s not your bag then I won’t take too much of your valuable time, running to just three pages this is not a bulky publication. Blink and you’ll miss it. “The stylish lines of the 504 Pock-Up may deceive you, but it is a large capacity, hard wearing vehicle” Let’s not get too complicated: This is literally a Peugeot 504 built at the factory as a pick-up rather than a sedan, but it’s rather better concieved than is usually the case when a car becomes a trucklet. Forward of the “B” posts all is pretty much as you might find on the regular Gallic family hauler. Further back, though, the integral, unibody construction becomes a bit of a hybrid, with reinforced “chassis rails” running aft and becoming the bearers for a live axle and simple leaf-spring set up. The 504 was always built tough, so much so that it became omnipresent on African roads (which were lain to the same blueprint as the surface of the moon), and the 504mpage continued that trend, with a payload capacity of 1275 French kilograms, or 2810lbs for non metrificated savages. It was a big old beat, stretching over five metres overall, or 16’10”. “Inside, there’s the level of comfort you would expect from a saloon” It’s difficult to argue with that. The 504 Sedan actually surpassed the comfort standards you’d expect for a sedan, and the interior here is basically a viciously de-contented version of that. So you lose out on such niceties as a centre console, there’s a big hole instead of a radio and there’s a lot of unpainted metal going on, but the basic architecture is the same. Seat comfort took a bit of a fall from the marvellous Sedan items, though, you got a “Bench seat upholstered in hard-wearing Teppluxe” instead of buckets. Teppluxe sounds lovely. Hot days and direct sunlight were possibly not entirely compatible with it; seared rumps would be a speciality. Mechanically, the choices for the 1982 504 Pick-Up were of the established 1.8 litre gasoline pushrod lump which was rated in this application at a very specific 78.8bhp, or the naturally aspirated 2.3 litre diesel, which would chug out 69bhp at a noisy 4500rpm. Unburstable, though. Rear wheel drive was the default, but the nice men at Dangel would, if you asked, build you a lifted 4×4 variant of unprecedented awesomeness. “The New 504 Pick-Up, rugged, reliable and comfortable” Europeans could get their hands on one of these ex-factory up until 1991, eight years after 504 Sedan production ended. Even that wasn’t the end of the story in global terms, though; Argentinians and Chinese folk could enjoy a locally assembled variant of the 504 Pick-Up right up until 2009. I’ve not seen one in years, though. There used to be quite a few local to me; always in a light blue with a white loadbay cover. But they all seem to have gone. As with any working vehicle, the moment it becomes worth more in scrap materials than as a going concern, its days are numbered. Last time I saw a tailgate in front of me bearing that pressed “P E U G E O T” script, my eyes sparkled for a moment. Then I went to overtake and found I was looking at just the loadbed and rear chassis assembly, converted into a trailer and being hauled by a Mondeo. But hey, at least I own the brochure. (Disclaimer: Images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me on the bonnet of a Rover 825Si. Copyright remains property of Peugeot. I want a Dangel.)