Chrysler Simca 2 liter. What was the motive again? – Vintage cars in Auto Motor Klassiek

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Chrysler Simca mid-size luxury car with MPS. Maybe that multi-character disorder wasn’t so surprising. Not only was this large mid-size car known as Chrysler, Simca and Talbot, but its history was also confusing, to say the least. La pauvre efant he was and remains a bastard.

French? No, an Englishman

In the late 1960s, the Rootes Group in England and Simca in France were working to create a model for the upper middle class. The Routes group firmly and calmly played with their C-Car, the happy French plunged into Project 929. It seemed very strange, but in fact it was the development of the successor of the great Simca model, the original Vedette, and ready addition. running 1501. Until then it was the top model of Simca, but the parent company Chrysler wanted more. And bigger. Downsizing was still a long way off.

Uncertainty between two options

Chrysler Europe eventually decided not to sell both models at the same time. A wise man. The top spot in the sales figures was not their natural habitat however, they themselves recognized that. Perhaps the British branch has also given it a boost, self-deprecatingly. So a decision had to be made. It fell into the design of the British Roots Group, which was renamed Chrysler UK. And the idea was transferred to Simca, which now continued as Chrysler France. For example, Chrysler 160 and 180 were introduced in 1970, thus creating Chrysler Europe. With the obvious influence of American styles, to add confusion on the visitor. Because what was the point?

The best of both worlds

That’s what it was meant to be. The idea was not bad: a European driving car with an American look. The truth was more complicated. American fashion lovers bought … American. They are almost never affected. Followers of the European way of driving less. They bought Europe. So it’s no surprise that this Chrysler crossover didn’t do well in the sales figures. It got off to a rough start and later modifications and updates to the Chrysler Simca 1609/1610, Talbot 1610/180/2 liter or Talbot Simca 2 liter also meant no flat doors for the respective dealers. They were already busy with the close-up of the advertising facade.

Unknown, unloved. Except in Spain

This beautiful rice is best sold in Spain. Relatively speaking, most of these top Chryslers were still sold in a Mediterranean oasis flooded with graying old men. And maybe that multi-character problem wasn’t surprising either. It is even sold in a diesel version. This was of course mainly due to the fact that Chrysler had transferred the production of the unsuccessful model from the French Poissy to the Spanish Barreiros. They weren’t the proverbial hotcakes, but partly due to the aforementioned diesel version and domestically produced station wagon variants, a decent number were still sold.

A silent death

Elsewhere in Europe, Chrysler’s top scorer Simca continued to struggle. It remained a bummer. Despite all the plans, because in the concept phase there was even a thick six-cylinder version. But he never went, people didn’t know what to do with it. He was certainly comfortable, but again not American comfort. Its driving characteristics were fine, but again not at the top level of Europe. He was not very good at anything, it wasn’t meat or fish. European production finally stopped in 1981, for the Spanish domestic market it was offered for another year until the last one came off the production line in 1982 and still no one knew exactly what was meant by a very sympathetic schizophrenic.

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