Peugeot cycles started producing bicycles in 1882, and from then on it was involved in sponsoring
cyclists. At the beginning of the century a Peugeot cycling team existed. Hippolyte Aucouturier rode Peugeot cycles when he won
Paris–Roubaix and
Bordeaux–Paris in 1903, and when he was disqualified from the
1904 Tour de France in which he had finished fourth overall, for the illegal use of trains and cars. But the Peugeot team obtained success for the following four years in the
Tour de France with
Louis Trousselier,
René Pottier and
Lucien Petit-Breton. The Peugeot team finished second overall in the 1912
Giro d'Italia. The team would obtain two further victories in the Tour de France with
Belgian Philippe Thys before the outbreak of the
First World War. Directly after the war, Peugeot cycles was one of the companies that made a consortium that pooled their resources into a collective
cycling team called
La Sportive. The objective of forming such a consortium was to keep the sport alive in the poor post-war economic situation. After three years of the La Sportive consortium, Peugeot re-established its separate cycling team, and with Belgian
Firmin Lambot won the
1922 Tour de France. During this time the team was known as the Peugeot team, or sometimes the name of a co-sponsor was added, which occasionally was Wolber,
Alcyon, Dunlop, Tedeschi, Bianchi-Pirelli. From 1936 until 1955 the team was the Peugeot-Dunlop team. Yves Petit-Breton (son of the two time Tour de France winner Lucien Petit-Breton) would be a
directeur sportif of the team in 1956. From 1948 to 1959 there was a
Belgian cycling team which was also sponsored by Peugeot, called Elvé-Peugeot. In 1958, Gaston Plaud became the directeur sportif of Peugeot-
BP, where he would stay until the mid seventies. He would direct big names to success, such as
Charly Gaul, Pino Cerami,
Ferdinand Bracke,
Walter Godefroot,
Tom Simpson, Jean-Pierre Danguillaume, and the early career of
Eddy Merckx. In 1963 Team Peugeot adopted the black and white checkerboard design, that would be on their white jersey until the team retired from the sport in 1986. During this time the team achieved many successes, such as
Tom Simpson winning
Bordeaux–Paris in 1963,
Milan–San Remo in 1964, and then in 1965 becoming world champion and winning the
Giro di Lombardia. riding for Peugeot–BP–Michelin at the
1967 Giro d'Italia Eddy Merckx rode his first two seasons with the team, and won
Milan–San Remo twice,
Gent–Wevelgem,
La Flèche Wallonne, a stage in the
1967 Giro d'Italia, and the world championships road race with the team, in 1966. In 1967, the Tour de France was disputed by national teams, and one of Peugeot's riders,
Roger Pingeon won the race. He would win the 1969
Vuelta a España for the team. The team won the Vuelta a España again, with Ferdinand Bracke in 1971. The name of the team changed in 1965 to Peugeot-BP
Michelin, which it stayed until 1976, when
Esso took the place of the second sponsor.
Maurice De Muer became directeur sportif with the team in 1975, and directed
Bernard Thévenet to beat Eddy Merckx, in the
1975 Tour de France. He directed the team until 1982. The last time the team would win the Tour de France would be with Bernard Thévenet, in
1977. In 1982
Shell became the second sponsor, and until its finish the team was Peugeot-Shell-Michelin. In the late seventies and early eighties, the team signed many Anglophone riders. Many of these came from a Parisian Amateur club
Athletic Club de Boulogne Billencourt (ACBB) that acted as a feeder club for top amateurs to turn professional.
Phil Anderson,
Robert Millar,
Stephen Roche,
Sean Yates, and
Allan Peiper all started their careers with the Peugeot team. The last time that the team had the
yellow jersey of the Tour was the
1983 Tour de France when
Pascal Simon wore the jersey, but had to abandon the Tour, due to a broken
collarbone. The team had its last chance at a
Grand Tour win in the 1985 edition of the Vuelta a España with
Robert Millar. Millar was wearing the leader's red jersey on the penultimate day when
Pedro Delgado attacked him, to take the stage and the leader's jersey. In its final year of existence (1986), the team was managed by
Roger Legeay. After 1986, Legeay created the
Vétements Z-Peugeot team as a continuation of the Peugeot cycling team. Legeay's team was subsequently renamed Z-Peugeot (1988–89), Z-Tomasso (1990), Z (1991–92), GAN (1993–96) and
Crédit Agricole (1997–2008), before being disbanded in 2008. Legeay's team is best remembered for being the team which the American cyclist
Greg LeMond rode for when he won the Tour de France in 1990 (when the team was known as Z-Tomasso). Other directeur sportifs of the Peugeot cycling team during its existence included: Leon Van der Hulst, Roland Berland, Robert Naeye, Roger Moreau, Jean Lecocq, Camille Narcy, Serge Beucherie, and Jean-François Guiborel. ==Major wins==