(pictures posted at the Cohort by Bryce)
(first posted 6/12/2014) Bryce, why are you showing me these pictures of a Simca 1000 at bed time? This is a car I’ve long wanted to write up here, but if I get into the story in great detail, I’ll be dreaming about Simca 1000s with their tails out all night. But it is a rather compelling bed-time story, so I’ll just have to try to tell it to you a wee bit quickly.
Until 1963, Big Papa Fiat was little nephew Simca’s primary shareholder. That gave Simca’s Director-General Henri Pigozzi, an Italian (obviously), unfettered access to Fiat’s advanced studios. After the launch of the very successful rear-engined Fiat 600 in 1955, Fiat set itself the task to develop a slightly larger car, but still rear-engined. Two prototype concepts were developed; a two-door sedan and a four door.
Since Fiat eventually went the two-door route with the 850, like this one that buzzes around Eugene like a hysterical Chihuahua, Pigozzi was essentially given the four door prototype, as Simca was hankering for a small car with which to do battle against the big bad Renault Dauphine.
The Fiat “Project 122” was a boxy little car, and Simca took it gladly and developed it into the production 1000, which premiered in 1961. Styling was done by Mario Revello de Beaumont, also an Italian ex-pat that had worked at GM’s Design Center before going to Simca in 1955.
It’s a tidy little car which shows some tell-tale styling influence of the Corvair, which was shown at the Paris Auto Show in September of 1959, just when the styling on the 1000 was being fleshed out by Sr. de Beaumont. Not it’s not one of the more blatant European Corvair clones, but it does pay some homage, mainly around the front end. And of course it was also rear-engined, but much smaller. The Corvair was a large car for European standards of the time, with a wheelbase the same as an S-Class Mercedes.
Despite it being a Fiat hand-me-down, Simca did develop a new engine for the 1000, a 944 cc water-cooled ohv four with five main bearings and alloy cross-flow head. This engine, known as the “Poissyengine”, would be built in many sizes, from 777cc all the way to 1592cc, and would even find its way into Chrysler’s Omni-Horizon twins, replacing the VW base engine. It was not loved in that particular role.
image: collectioncar.com
In its use in the Chrysler twins, it was often mistakenly called a Peugeot engine, but that’s only because Peugeot had by then bought the remnants of Chrysler’s European ops from Chrysler. Maybe it was Peugeot’s way of getting back at Chrysler, for the basket of bum goods it ended up with. Renaming them Talbot didn’t help any either. So it should really have been called the “Talbot” engine in those Omnirizons. Whatever. The last use of the Poissy was in 1991, in the Peugeot 309; fitting.
But that engine had plenty of sporting potential, which Italian tuner Abarth soon put to good use with a series of tuned Simca-Abarth 1150s. These had 1137 cc and between 55-65 hp, with optional disc brakes and a six-speed(!) transmission. Where did that come from?
image: wikipipedia
Simca eventually built its own line of Rallye models, which gave the Renault Gordini R8s a run for their money. These little rear engine bombs were a hot item in the late 60s and early 70s. The final Rallye 3 had no less than 103 (DIN) hp, and would have run circlus around a Corvair Corsa. And that orange Matra Bagheera in the background used a number of Simca 1000 components, as well as a version of the Poissy engine.
The Simca 1000 enjoyed quick success in France; it wasn’t able to best the Dauphine, but it handily beat the Citroen Dyane and was the the #2 seller in its class. It was noted for its fairly roomy interior despite the small size, light steering, and sporty handling, with beaucoup dé la oversteer (pardon my French). Since the Simca also had its gas tank in the rear, weight distribution was 35/65, about as extreme a rear-bias as any production car ever. Calling Ralph Nader!
In 1963, Chrysler took a controlling share in Simca. The 1000 was sold in the US by those few Chrysler dealers adventurous enough to keep an oar in the import waters in the mid 60s, by which time it was tougher sledding for Simca than it had been in the 50s, when the Simca Aronde had been quite popular during the Great Import Boom. (CC here) It wasn’t very common, but one would see 1000s around, although it’s been an eternity since I’ve seen one. It’s on my CC-finds Bucket List.
But Bryce caught this one on the streets in New Zealand, and it looks like it’s been getting some love and attention, even a two-tone paint job. The 1000 was also built in Spain, and had a long life, lasting until 1978 in France. By that time, it was pretty obsolete. The very advanced FWD Simca 1100/1204 had long superseded it as Simca’s main compact car.
Of course, there’s another whole chapter to the Simca 1000 story, the exceptionally handsome Simca Coupe 1000 (later Simca 1200S), built by Bertone, and designed by the newly-hired young Giorgetto Giugiaro. This is his very first design, and clearly hints at many others to come that bore his distinctive touch. If this coupe was anything to go on, it was obvious that Giugiaro was headed for a bright future. But we”ll have to leave that for another night; lights out.
Related reading: 1956 Simca Aronde Simca 1204-1971 Small Car Comparison #2
Another car from my schooldays,a temporary teacher had a cream coloured one just like the photo I only remember seeing another very rusty white one in the late 70s Apart from VW beetles and American cars from the USAF base near my grandparents foreign cars were rare in 60s Britain.I never knew about the hot model,thanks for another great read and another car I never knew about
A very nice, very forgotten car. I think Johnstown had a Simca dealer in the 50’s and 60’s, but I’ve got no memory of who or where they were located.
I was amused at the line from the British ad, “Big, New – and Gay in every important feature”. To those younger than a certain age, there was a time when the word had absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation. I love the constant evolution of the English language.
No need to call Ralph Nader. The engine and gas tank in the back and a bag of sand, or a few concrete tiles, in the front. Stable at any speed.
Exactly. My father used to do the same driving NSU Prinz.
The Prinz owner’s manual pointed out that the 175-pound engine balanced weight with the average driver- so no problem. That car’s engine was transverse, which reduced the rear weight bias.
A fantastic little car (they did get rusty fast however) but to drive they were FUN FUN FUN ! ! ! ! …just look at that engine ..alloy head ..tasty manifolding (for the time) ..crossflow ..very little exhaust restriction …one thing, you HAD TO KEEP LEAVES OUT of the radiator shroud on the intake side of the airflow.. handling was fun ! ! ! ! ! The Porsche-style sliding hub gearbox was a treat to use..like a knife through warm butter in the smoothness of it’s action ..just a lovely little charming character full little car, period!
It was dead easy to obtain more power out of it with more advance and by just inserting a bigger venturi tube into the downdraft carb (i used a much bigger tube and mucked around with the main jet a bit to get it right) ..it was either a Zenith or a Solex and easy to interchange tubes ..the difference in power must have been an extra 10hp by the feel of it ..second gear acceleration was quite quick across intersections, at least as good if not better than the quite snappy 3 main bearing Mk1 Cortina my mother had.. 🙂
wow!!!! great find, have never seen one in the states. I remember they were all over Spain when I was a kid. that and the SEAT version of the 850.
I was brought home in a Seat 850 when I was born
My first car was a Seat 133.
With all due respect Paul, but by the time the Rally 1, Rally 2 and eventually the Rally 3 arrived, Renault were deep into Renault 12 Gordini and Renault 5 Alpine country,
the orange or white livered Rally one’s were more competible to the Renault R8S, whose production ended in 1970.
A Rally 2 could lick at an R8 Gord but could not really cope with it, same as it could not cope with a 1200TT by NSU.
Advantage of the Simca’s was you could get parts from the European 1100 Special and Ti’s to make your Rally 1 quicker, and the alloy’s from the Ti would really make a Rally 1 stand out.
But actually king of the hill back then was Autobianchi’s (long forgotten FIAT brand) A 112 Abarth.
And you also did not want to meet with an Alfa Sud Ti.
We did scavenge Simca Rally dashboards in the scrap yards, they had those lovely Jaeger and Veglia gauges.
But a Rally 1, in 1971 in Holland would set you back the equivalent of $ 2500
Bizarrely, there’s an Autobianchi A112 here in my rural New Zealand town…! I took some photos of it recently for a future CC post on it – here’s a teaser:
Rally 1,available in white or orange, made you feel like a Million $$$
Rally 2, more in the price range of NSU’s 1200 TT, over 50% more expensive then a Rally 1, mean Mr Mustard I’d say.
Today, an unmolested example goes north of € 15000
Actually, the two loves of my life in boy-racer country were the Italian made Innocenti Mini Cooper 1300 and the aforementioned A 112 Abarth.
Especially the A 112 was cute, had a great exhaust roar and was as a Hatchback, a very practicle car
I “Abarthised” my A112, the engine originally was the Fiat 850 Speclal engine (903cc) but a Fiat 850 Spider cylinder head and carb did miracles and it came close to an Abarth.
By the time the Rally 3 appeared, these cars were hopelessly old, and were superseded by Sunbeam Talbot Lotus or the more friendly Ti model.
My avatar shows a picture of my R8S, one of the few boy-racer I’ve never owned back then and I came across this car just by coincidence.
Although the R8S is unmolested, wears its Original paint, I would not even have to think for one second to trade it for an A 112 Abarth.
The first real hot-hatch
A Machinist at work who’s French has a ’69 Simca 1000 , it’s white and a nice little car he loves a lot .
He’s one of the *very* few competent Machinists we have .
-Nate
My mother had one as her first car somewhere around 1974 I think, baby bleu and a semi automatic, was the first car i did drive, when she wasn’t looking….in a year or five the floor was so far rusted the seats fell on the ground.
Now I remember. There was an odd little rear engined Simca that arrived in our little shop for some service and we all marveled at the semi-automatic transmission with the electric clutch actuator. French cars were a rarity by the 1970’s, even in Southern California, and I had never seen a Simca before.
I’ve never seen one; while they did make it to the USA (evidently) there don’t seem to be any left in the southeast/mid-atlantic. Full of character, but from the direct side view, if it were not for the C-pillar being wider than the A-pillar it would be almost perfectly symmetrical!
Peggy, Joe Mannix’s secretary. drove one of these in the early seasons of Mannix, until they took it away and saddled her with a Plymouth Cricket…
Sorry to keep ya up Paul but I spotted this out to play, I know where it lives ironically about 150 yards from my house the owner has a large herd of Simca various models and occasionally he allows them out and about I caught his Arianne in traffic a while ago but its gone unnoticed on the cohort.
Where I grew up we had the local Simca dealer living over our back fence, Hillman dealer was across the street my Dad was company sec of the GM dealership I became a car nut, hardly a surprise, these rear engined Simcas were quite popular and the Rallye though not sold here could be xeroxed through the parts counter a mate bought a genuine exhaust system NO muffler he kept the receipt in the glove box after his first encounter with a magpie coloured MOT rep to prove it wasnt a homemade extra loud exhaust but a genuine part, that along with a twin choke Weber and port an polish his rusty Orange 1000 was quite a rodcketship and as Craig said dont bring a Cortina to race it should you keep up on the straights Cortinas are a bit underdone on the corners, alas rust finally put it off the road.
Presumably he’s the guy advertising Simcas on trademe? Here’s the two he has pictured on TM, I’ve seen the 1501 in person some years ago, really liked it.
Scott, do you know who imported the 1000 into NZ (and assembled them, if applicable) along with the predecessor Aronde Etoile? I recall them new in the 60s and 70s though quite rare. Franchise holders and assemblers for these minor player brands changed regularly and I have never been able to find out.
Yep same guy, that Vedette has a Holden V8 replacing the flathead from memory
There’s a good memory. One of my friends had one of these as a first car. It got progressively slower once we added more than 2 people. There was one admittedly steep hill that we went up with 4 people in but two had to get out to clear the top even in first gear. It made my Fiat 128 seem like a musclecar. This was in the early 80s before the weird European cars imported in the 1960s became so rare in Canada.
Given the Simca 1000 was originally a Fiat design, it would have been interesting seeing the company replace the Aronde with a production version of the rear-engined Fiat 123 E3 prototype (that featured a Fiat 1100 Type 103 engine which based on Dante Giacosa’s account allegedly formed the basis of the Simca Poissy engine) featuring 1296-1592cc Simca engines.
Sure there was the Simca 1300/1500, which feature the Fiat 1100 Type 103 derived engines though the car itself was much larger and in need of higher capacity engines then the 1500 unit.
Curiously it seems Matra and a few others looked at 16-valve and possibly even OHC / DOHC versions of the Poissy engine, albeit likely for motorsport use though very useful for road-going Poissy engined models. – http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/10/sonic-destroyers-v12-thing/
Vaguely recall a vintage American ad for the Simca 1000 touting its fine handling, lively performance, economy, etc. … and compared to a muscle car, “a much more meaningful way to demonstrate your masculinity … comes standard with fully reclining front bucket seats”. Can someone confirm whether seats do in fact fully recline ? Anyone remember that ad ?
This car doesn’t have what is to me to be the most unique and obvious Corvair styling feature, the “continuous lid,” a la the BMW 1600/2002. Yet it still looks like a preemie little Corvair…or maybe the adorable love child of a Corvair and Renault R8.
Wow, I’d pretty much forgotten about these; much less common in my part of California than any Renault … Dauphine, R8, or R10. Though even those are mostly gone now. But I much prefer the style of the 850 2 door.
In Spain,Seat built a 4-door version of the 850,unavailable anywhere else in the world.
Ca. 1965 Consumer Reports road tested a Simca 1000, a Saab 96 two-stroke, and a Datsun 411 for a single article. Hard to think of a more disparate group.
Since this post appeared the first time another Simca this model surfaced locally it was for sale tidy good runner and it took a while to move obviously theres a limited market for these cars yet they were popular new where I lived the local Ford dealer ditched the blue oval for Simca, since turned into a Toyota store and theyve never looked back,
I wonder how many more are laying around in sheds waiting to be discovered, the biggest problem would be finding parts now.
It seems pretty gutsy of Chrysler to have offered a 5 year/50 000 mile warranty on them. Were they confident, or did they feel they had no choice if they were being sold through Chrysler dealers? I’d be curious to know how it turned out.
The aftermarket paint job on the featured car reminds me of a Audax Hillman Minx !
My Dad bought a ’68 Renault R10 new; like some of these Simcas it had 4 doors, but the 2 rear doors had sliding window (side to side) rather than the rolldown as in the front, which is a bit curious, don’t recall the front doors being any deeper than the rear to have room for the window regulator (maybe flat window glass didn’t need too deep a door).
It was our family’s 2nd car, replacing a ’59 Beetle that was totaled by a neighbor when parked in front of our house. Our other car was an intermediate wagon, and we hardly ever travelled in the Renault as a family despite it having 4 doors; it was my Dad’s commuter car and when he sold it in 1974 it only had about 22000 miles on it. Still,he did put a new clutch in it, and I remember lots of battery issues (he kept a battery charger in the front trunk) for some reason, maybe because it didn’t get driven far. It also had a neat “swing down” spare tire compartment under the front bumper (under the front trunk). I think this was the first car he had that came with radials (not sure, but maybe the Beetle still had tube tires?), think it was good in snow, he drove it from Burlington to Essex Jct daily year round, of course….but the car was sold in northern Virginia to where he’d been transferred.
I think it had the 1100 cc 4 cyl. Not sure if he ever considered a Simca…he’s been gone 4 years now so can’t ask him…sure my Mother wouldn’t know.
Growing up in a small town in the sixties, a friend had parents with two of these. They loved them and I loved riding in them, being totally unlike my parents’ hulking Bonnevilles. They drove them for many years, too.