When Peugeot lifted the virtual wraps off the e-Legend Concept earlier today, I realized I had seen something very similar not that long ago. By that, I don’t mean the classic Peugeot 504 Coupé the study tries to emulate — that car launched 49 years ago.
Scrolling through the comments section of the Peugeot e-Legend article, I discovered that some of our readers believed that the coupé study looked a lot like Nissan’s IDx Freeflow concept from 2013. Bingo! That’s the car I had in mind too.
Since great minds think alike (that also goes for the design teams that worked on the two projects), this was as good an excuse as any to do a visual comparison of the two concepts and see if they really are that similar. Here we go.
Seen from the front, the two retro-styled coupés feature plenty of similarities. The headlights are double on each side (albeit flatter on the e-Legend), the horizontal grilles are thin, and even the engine hoods are sculpted in a similar fashion. The bumpers look alike too, except the Peugeot‘s central air intake is placed lower than Nissan’s.
The front-side view also reveals some resemblances, as well as differences. For example, both cars have trim on the wheel arches, but the IDx Freeflow‘s is in a different color than the bodyworks while the e-Legend’s is in the body color. As for the front fenders, the Nissan has air vents behind the front wheels, while the Peugeot adopts a cleaner look without disruptions.
Seen from the side, it’s remarkable how much the silhouettes of the two concepts’ look alike. The inclinations of the windshields and rear screens, as well as the lengths and angles of the engine hoods and boot lids, are strikingly similar. The details are quite different, however.
The Peugeot has a wraparound windscreen as opposed to the Nissan’s more conventional item, but the roles are reversed when it comes to the C-pillars, as the IDx goes for a “floating roof” design. Finally, the doors are cut very differently and the Japanese car still has door handles, which are nowhere to be seen on its French counterpart.
The rear side angle pose reveals similar contours, especially towards the back: just look how abruptly the boot ends on both cars and how resemblant the lines that descend from the taillights to the bumpers are. A detail that wasn’t that obvious from the previous photos is the fact that the IDx Freeflow‘s side mirrors are placed on the fenders, while the e-Legend’s are attached to the doors.
Our final exterior photo comparison brings us at the rear end, where there are more differences than similarities. The taillights may feature three elements on both cars, but the Nissan adds a light strip that unites them to give the car more visual width. The Peugeot doesn’t need that, as it appears wider already. Another noticeable difference is that the IDx Freeflow has a central exhaust pipe while the e-Legend doesn’t need one since it’s all-electric.
Finally, the interiors have as much in common as the concepts’ powertrains. They are very different from one another, and that’s could also be because they’re five years apart. The Peugeot’s cabin looks much more futuristic, while Nissan’s seems fit for a 2018 production car.
Ultimately, the e-Legend and IDx Freeflow draw inspiration from the same era so it’s inevitable to find similarities between them. The Pininfarina-designed Peugeot 504 Coupé came out in 1969, while the Datsun 510 Coupé that inspired the Nissan IDx Freeflow launched approximately two years earlier. That being said, we can’t wait to hear your take on this and learn which concept you dig more.