Aguttes Auctions Jean Todt’s Rare White Peugeot 205 Turbo 16

A French auction house, Aguttes, has just listed one of the rarest and most valuable examples of the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 - not least because it is one of only four cars that left the factory originally finished in white.

To make it even more distinctive, this particular car was owned by Jean Todt, the current FIA president. When this homologation special was launched, Todt was the man in charge at Peugeot Talbot Sport - the division responsible for developing the 205 Turbo 16 rally car to compete in the legendary Group B era of the World Rally Championship.

Provenance: one of four pearl-white Peugeot 205 Turbo 16s

Of the four cars painted in pearl white (all the rest were finished in Winchester grey), every one remained within the French brand’s inner circle. The example shown here was delivered to Todt, while the other three went to Jean Boillot (Peugeot’s president at the time), Didier Pironi (the celebrated French racing driver) and André de Cortanze (Peugeot’s technical director).

Todt kept the car until 1988, when it passed to a Peugeot engineer based in Sochaux. It is now heading to auction and, according to the auctioneer handling the sale, it could change hands for between EUR 300,000 and EUR 400,000.

Only 219 examples exist

Any resemblance to a standard Peugeot 205 is purely coincidental. The 205 Turbo 16 is, in effect, a competition prototype, built around a tubular chassis and clothed in a body made from composite materials.

To homologate the 205 Turbo 16 for the World Rally Championship, Peugeot had to build at least 200 road cars in the same configuration as the competition model. In the end, the company produced 219 units (split across two series), including the car featured here.

This was the 33rd example from the first series, which was limited to 200 cars, and it was registered in Paris in 1985 by Peugeot itself.

Todt “requested” more power

The road-legal 205 Turbo 16 was powered by a turbocharged 1.8-litre, four-cylinder, 16-valve engine - mounted midships in a transverse layout - producing 200 hp, roughly half the output of the full competition version. However, according to the auction house selling it, this particular car was modified to deliver 230 hp, at Jean Todt’s own request.

With just 9,900 km on the odometer, this Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 has recently undergone a comprehensive service and was fitted with a new fuel pump, a drive belt and a set of Michelin TRX tyres.

As the photographs indicate, it remains in excellent condition, retaining the two-spoke steering wheel with the Turbo 16 script and the sporty bucket seats in immaculate order.

All of that goes a long way towards explaining the small “fortune” Aguttes believes it will achieve - alongside the fact that the competition-spec 205 T16 secured both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ World Rally Championship titles in 1985 and 1986, with Finns Timo Salonen and Juha Kankkunen at the wheel, respectively.

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