Peugeot's industrial adventure was born in a steel foundry set up in a converted flour mill. It was rapidly abandoned for cold rolling, a much more profitable activity, for which a patent was registered in 1818. The cold rolling activity led to the production of manufactured objects, saws and watch and clock mechanisms. Success and prosperity were not long in arriving, thanks to the quality of the products, which were already being exported. This quality came to be symbolised in the emblem of the lion.

Peugeot then diversified in multiple directions. Production covered a huge number of tools and products, representing all the manual jobs of the century. In 1840, the company ventured from the workshop into the kitchen, with the first coffee mill. This was made until 1975, becoming electric at the start of the 1930s. The famous coffee mill was also to be seen amongst professionals, in grocery shops and cafés. A pepper mill followed in its wake. With its patented milling system, it was practically impossible to wear out, and is still produced today, having been sold in its millions all around the world.

The lion also catered for the world of women, with crinolines and corset stays and, in 1867, sewing machines, which were manufactured until 1936.
Prosperity flourished in the area of Montbéliard, which had escaped the onslaught of the Prussian armies. The "Grand Bi", tricycles and bicycles entered the competition. Later, along came irons, washing machines from 1920 onwards, radio sets with the invention of wireless telegraphy, and household electrical goods in the 1960s, including the first food processor - the Peugimix, and many other products.

In the middle of the 19th Century, new factories sprang up at Valentigney and Beaulieu, which were later to produce cars. A pioneer of the automobile, Armand Peugeot knew that the future of the car lay in the petrol engine. After a short excursion into steam tricycles built with Serpollet, he wished to take advantage of the Daimler engine, and struck an agreement with Gottlieb Daimler and the company Panhard et Levassor   (which held Daimler's manufacturing licence for France). From 1891 the first series of Peugeot Type 3 quadricycles, powered by petrol, was produced.

Success was swift to follow. But before this happened, Armand Peugeot had to separate off the automobile business from the other manufacturing divisions of his cousin Eugène, who was opposed to the motor car. In 1896 he founded the company called Société des Automobiles Peugeot and had a new factory built at Audincourt to manufacture his cars. In the terms and conditions of the separation, Eugène's company, "Fils de Peugeot Frères" (Sons of Peugeot Bros), was forbidden from manufacturing automobiles, and the "Société des Automobiles Peugeot" was forbidden from manufacturing tools, two-wheeled vehicles, tricycles and quadricycles with a saddle.

Nevertheless, in 1905, Eugène's sons launched their first automobile brand, known as Lion-Peugeot, producing popular models. Order was restored in 1910, with the merger of the two brands. The first utility vehicle, the Type 13, was brought out in 1895. The first engine designed and manufactured by Peugeot appeared the following year. The first factory located outside Franche-Comté was opened at Fives-Lille in 1897.

After the merger, the group had considerable industrial power, with their four factories, at Audincourt, Lille, Beaulieu and Valentigney. Before the First World War, Peugeot constructed 10,000 cars, which comprised half of French production.

However, the company experienced some financial difficulties after the war. In debt, it was obliged to borrow and, in 1926, the most profitable business, which was cycles, became legally independent from the automobile. Two companies were created, Automobiles Peugeot and Cycles Peugeot.

In 1925, the 100,000th Peugeot left the factory. In 1929 the production means were concentrated at the Sochaux site, which had been inaugurated in 1912. The success of the 201 allowed the company to come through the depression of the 1930s relatively unscathed.

Following the Second Word War, a single model policy was implemented, with the 203. This came to an end in 1965, with the launch of the 204. The same year saw the creation of Peugeot SA, a holding company controlling all the group companies. Four years earlier, work had started on the construction of the factory at Mulhouse, which was destined to become the brand's second production site.

By the dawn of the 1970s, Peugeot had become the second largest French manufacturer, having produced 500,000 cars. It signed an agreement with Renault in 1966. One of the fruits of this agreement was the 1971 construction of an engine with the participation of Volvo, an engine which later became the V6 PRV. This partnership, which followed the inauguration with Renault of a joint factory at Douvrin, was followed by many others: with Fiat in 1981 for the production of utility vehicles and people carriers, then with Ford in 1998 for the development of diesel engines, with Toyota in 2001 for small engined models and with BMW the following year for petrol engines.

Taking control of Citroën in 1976 led to the creation of  PSA Peugeot-Citroën. Increasingly hungry for growth, two years later the lion bought the three European subsidiaries of Chrysler. At the same time PSA acquired the industrial sites of Poissy, Ryton in Britain and Villaverde in Spain. But digesting these repeated acquisitions over such a short time was to prove a little too much. The attempt to breathe some life into the Talbot brand by incorporating into it the ex-subsidiaries of Chrysler ended in failure.

Peugeot's international growth was marked by its arrival in China in 1985, which was a vital necessity in the context of globalisation, whilst the 2001 inauguration of the factory at Porto Real, Brazil, which followed the opening of a site in Argentina, has strengthened the presence of the lion brand in the Southern Common Market.