Voiturette Lion Poster – Vintage Peugeot Poster – Automobile Poster – Cram 1905 What a great-looking early advertising poster this is. It is an Automobile Poster for Voiturette Lion Peugeot. It was produced in 1905 to present the new Voiturette Lion motor car at the Paris Motor Show. The poster was created by an artist by the name of Cram. The artist highlights, quite literally, the first automobile mode from the production line of the new ‘Peugeot Frères’ factory in Beaulieu. Cram has depicted the four-seat, bright red and gold Voiturette Lion standing on cobblestones in the dark of night. Cram has captured the majestically looking car in the gaze of a powerful spotlight and has included a couple of bicycles and a motorcycle, products also made by the Peugeot company at the time, around the car. The poster reads: Les Fils de Peugeot Frères. Beaulieu (Doubs). There is an Agent black at the bottom of the poster which would have been used to overprint the names and addresses of where the car could be bought. The Peugeot family had a long tradition of manufacturing steel components and mechanisms. In the top left hand corner of the Voiturette Lion poster is the brand logo featuring a lion standing on an arrow, the symbol of high-quality steel. The Voiturette Lion automobile by Lion Peugeot The Voiturette Lion was the first of a succession of models to carry the “Lion-Peugeot” name. It was developed alongside cars manufactured by ‘Automobiles Peugeot’. A non-competition agreement signed between the two companies in 1905, stated that ‘Peugeot Frères’ could only build small cars with single cylinder engine. The Voiturette Lion did indeed possess a single cylinder 785 cm³ four-stroke engine. The 7hp vehicle could, it was claimed, achieve a top speed of 22mph. Two versions of the car were manufactured; a carriage format Voiturette provided space for two while a covered carriage format body offered space for four. According to Wikipedia, the car appeared to have featured a simple but efficient design, and the manufacturer was able to price the first Lion-Peugeot competitively. Sales were, by the standards of the time, correspondingly high, and approximately 1,000 of the Voiturette Lion cars were produced between 1906 and 1908. This made the Lion-Peugeot Type VA the first car carrying the “Peugeot” name to reach 1,000 units. This figure suggests that the Voiturette car’s sales were greater than those of Automobiles Peugeot’s own Bébé model at the time. The Bébé, through a succession of versions, would remain in production until 1916 and ultimately top 3,000 sales. How much is the Voiturette Lion Poster worth? Cram’s Voiturette Lion Art Nouveau poster was originally created in 1905 during the Belle Epoque era. Copies are now rare and hard to come by. It’s not uncommon when original copies do come up at auction, for them to command a sale price in excess of £1600. An exception to this was made when an oversize version appeared. It measured a whopping seven feet wide and one and a half feet tall. This large version of the Peugeot poster sold for almost £5,000.
