There is a physical, tangible element that fits perfectly to describe the trajectory of Pedro Sanchez before arriving at Moncloa. It represents his origin, as if it came out of nowhere, his desire to touch power, to maintain it, and it even symbolizes everything that was later learned about his companies and their weaknesses. We are talking, of course, about his Peugeot 407, that car that he himself strived to turn into a legend and that now gives wings to the opposition to exemplify everything that is wrong in the Government.
Coinciding with the trial of José Luis Ábalos and Koldo Garciaillustrious passengers who, together with Santos Cerdan and Sánchez make up what the PP calls “the Peugeot gang”, LA RAZÓN has followed the trail of that vehicle through official sources to prepare an x-ray of its use and also find out what became of it.
The journey is full of surprises: Sánchez sold it as soon as he arrived at Moncloa and obtained an official car, and the Peugeot was passed from hand to hand until it was decommissioned two years ago. This newspaper has been able to find out, from its ITV files, even how many kilometers he did that year in which he was touring groups throughout the country with Ábalos and company to once again take over the general secretary of the PSOE… but we are going in parts.
Sánchez’s history with the car begins in 2005. According to a DGT report that this newspaper has accessed, He bought it on July 11, a year after having joined the Madrid City Council as a councilor. replacing Elena Arnedo.
From that moment on, Sánchez achieved milestones both personally and professionally: in 2006 he married Begoña Gómez, in 2008 they both bought their first house together (in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid), and in 2009 he became a deputy in Congress, replacing Pedro Solves. The car accompanied the now president during all those years, although on occasions his wife also used it. In fact, in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid There is a traffic fine for Begoña Gómez in 2009an infraction that he appealed without luck and for which he had to end up paying 150 euros.
But then Sánchez’s career stagnated, he even says that he thought about leaving politics, but he revived in 2013 when Alfredo Pérez Rubalcabastill general secretary of the PSOE, commissioned him to prepare the economic presentation for the Political Conference that was going to be held that year. According to Sánchez in his “Resistance Manual”, his Peugeot played an important role in that stage, because he had to tour numerous socialist groups, meeting with militants to prepare the document, traveling kilometers and arriving home in the wee hours of the morning.
This entire journey helped him realize that there was no solid alternative to Rubalcaba and he became known among the militants, which was decisive for him to take the step in 2014 and present himself as a candidate for the general secretary of the PSOE. As this newspaper has been able to verify, on December 16, 2014 Sánchez took his Peugeot to the ITV in Las Rozas and had already accumulated no less than 188,872 kilometers. That distance is equivalent to driving from Sardinero beach in Santander to the port of Tarifa 1,031 times.
The route with Ábalos and company
What happened after he became general secretary is well known. He did not win the elections, nor did he want to invest Mariano Rajoy and an internal rebellion broke out in the PSOE that led to his resignation in September 2016. But he did not give up and then published a tweet: “On Monday I’ll take my car to tour all the corners of Spain again and listen.”
There, Sánchez began his now famous route on the back of the Peugeot, visiting militants from all over the country to regain control of the party. It is at that moment that he also began to strengthen ties with people like Ábalos, Cerdán and Koldo, who accompanied him on that route, in that car, and there also began the path that, for some, is ending these weeks in the Supreme Court.
Curiously, the ITV mileage records allow us to put figures on the Peugeot’s famous route. Sánchez took the vehicle for inspection on July 14, 2016, two months before leaving the general secretary of the PSOE, and took it again on November 20, 2017, shortly after being re-elected as leader of his party. Between one appointment and another, the Peugeot traveled 20,347 kilometers, an average of 1,271 per month.
Although it is a high figure, the truth is that it does not live up to the existing myth, the one that glorifies that Sánchez drove through every corner of Spain. Between the MOT inspection that passed on December 16, 2014 and that of July 2016, the Peugeot traveled 32,110 kilometers, 1,605 per month. That is to say: The vehicle traveled further when Sánchez was already general secretary of the PSOE than when he was fired and had to hit the road to win over the militants again..
Decommissioned in 2024
Once he reached the general secretary of his party, Sánchez set his sights on his next goal, that of reaching Moncloa, and he achieved it after triumphing in his motion of censure against Rajoy, in July 2018. At that moment, Sánchez changed his Peugeot for an official vehicle and must have thought that his car, which was already 13 years old, was no longer worth it. That’s why, As soon as he arrived at the Government, he put it up for sale and on September 19, 2018, the day the new president opened the Moncloa for the first time to a group of citizens, the Peugeot already had a new owner.
According to a DGT report that this newspaper has accessed, that new owner only had it for a month, and sold it again on October 25, 2018. He sold it to Borja JN, a Madrid native born in 1965 and with no known link to Pedro Sánchez who, although he kept it for years, gave it practically no use. With that age, cars have to pass the ITV every year and Borja only took it for the inspection on November 20, 2018, while Sánchez appeared in a Government control session in the Senate. So the car already had 241,329 kilometers accumulated.
Since then, the car did not circulate again, it did not pass any more ITV and Borja ended up deregistering it voluntarily on September 10, 2024. On that date, Sánchez was on an official trip to China, where he met with Xi Jinping. It arrived in a giant Air Force Airbus and with “Kingdom of Spain” engraved in huge letters. The Peugeot had become too small for him.