Peugeot 309

The Peugeot 309 is a small family car built between 1985 and 1994 in France, England and Spain by PSA Peugeot Citroën. It began as Projet C28, a replacement for the Talbot Horizon, and was meant to be a Talbot called the Arizona, but in 1985 the PSA Group dropped the Talbot brand for passenger cars and sold the car as a Peugeot instead. Development was done by the former Chrysler and Simca side of PSA, with styling from the former Chrysler-Rootes studios in Coventry and engineering at Poissy, and it used a stretched Peugeot 205 floorpan and door shells with the Simca engines and transmissions carried over from the Horizon. French production began at Poissy in the late summer of 1985, right-hand drive cars were built at Ryton near Coventry, and the only body originally offered was a five-door hatchback. The unusual model number was chosen to keep it apart from the larger 305.