Simca: A Forgotten Marque?

The first car I ever owned was a Simca. Before I owned it, I had never heard of the marque, and my dad, who had helped me find this set of wheels to get me to a summer job, described it as the French equivalent of a VW Beetle or a Mini.  After that summer of using the Simca to get to my holiday job, I ended up selling it and using the money to buy a fridge, which I needed for my new flat. I have never heard or seen any other Simcas since then. Needless to say, there is that part of me that, now that I have left my student days well behind me and am probably officially middle-aged, is kicking myself for selling it (the fridge is also long gone). Especially as now, it would be worth a lot more than a refrigerator, given that would have been a fairly rare classic car. The same could probably be said by most of us about our student cars.

I cannot remember the model of Simca that I owned.  However, a quick crawl through the range of images online suggests that it was probably a 1000 or 1100. Given that the engine was at the front (I remember almost ritually checking up the fluids every week on a Thursday, opening the bonnet to do so), I can therefore conclude that it was a 1100, as the 1000 had a rear engine, like a VW Beetle.

Simca 1100 – a wee trip down memory lane for me.

I have noticed blank looks similar to mine when I start talking about my first car. “Who makes that?” is quite a common question. As it would be nice to have a nice article to direct these dinner party guests to, I thought I’d put together a bit about Simca, what they made and what happened to them.

My father had called the Simca the French equivalent of the Beetle or Mini. He would have done better to say that Simca was the equivalent of the Fiat Bambina or Fiat 500.  This is because the company, originally known as “Société Industrielle de Mécanique et Carrosserie Automobile” (that’s French for “Mechanical and Automotive Body Manufacturing Company”) was founded by Fiat in 1934 so they could outsource the production of their 508 and 518 models.  Then World War 2 happened and Simca nearly went under, especially because of its Italian roots, and the Italians (under Mussolini’s Fascists) had been rather pally with the Nazis who had occupied France during the war. However, the company won a contract to repair US Army Jeeps, which put them on a sound financial footing.

For the next two or three decades, Simca grew slowly, although they were overshadowed by the better-known French marques, Renault, Citroen and Peugeot, especially Renault. However, it was successful in its home country, with the 1100 being one of the most popular cars in France by the late 1970s. Simcas were manufactured in a number of countries, including Australia, which is probably where the one I owned was made. The company also managed to take over the Talbot-Lago brand, with several Simca models also being sold with Talbot badging.

However, Simca was itself taken over, slowly and surely, by Chrysler. The American company bought a sizeable share of Simca in the late 1950s, although the company was still mostly a subsidiary of Fiat. Chrysler gradually edged Fiat out and took over the majority of shares in the 1960s. Finally, by the early 1970s, Chrysler took the company over completely and Simca’s name was changed to Chrysler France.  The old Simca badge was phased out, with the last official Simca being made in 1973, which tells me that my car was older than me. After that, the cars made in Simca’s factories all had the Chrysler badge, including the Alpine and the Horizon.

I doubt I will try hunting down another example of my old Simca (presumably) 1100. If I were to look for a classic car, it would probably be something else, even though I thoroughly enjoyed driving my Simca, despite the lack of power steering and the fact that the speedo was in mile per hour, meaning that I had to do plenty of mental arithmetic during my daily commute to ensure I kept to the speed limit. However, given that Chrysler Europe was itself taken over by the Peugeot group in the late 1970s, I started speculated what the closest modern-day equivalent would be. I had a look at the latest offerings available from Fiat-Chrysler Australia (an appropriate blend of names, given Simca’s history) and decided that the closest thing was… the Fiat 500.  Which is where Simca started, ouroboros fashion.

The Ouroboros – ending where it begins. Wouldn’t it make a great automotive logo?

AMG One Nürburgring Record

Doesn’t this car look immense!  The AMG One has become the fastest road-legal production car to run around Germany’s famous track, the Nürburgring.  The track is just shy of 21 kilometres long and is full of challenging corners with some scintillatingly quick straights thrown in for good measure.

The AMG One’s two-seat cockpit is accessed via doors that open up on the diagonal – forwards and upwards. The car’s seats are moulded into the structure of the car to save weight and are made of a magma grey nappa leather and black Dinamica microfibre.  The backrest can be adjusted to two different angles.  Despite the minimalist design, the AMG One comes with features like climate control, electric windows, an infotainment system, and a rear-view camera.

It is quite a car!  The exterior looks stunning, with the exterior having an airbrush finish to it that features hundreds of little three-pointed stars – like on the current Mercedes Formula One cars.  The car’s front wheels boast 19-inch rims, and the rear rims are 20-inch.  The push-rod spring struts are aluminium and can be adapted to three settings: Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus.  Anti-lock brakes, a three-stage stability control system, and a nine-stage traction control system all work in unison to keep the AMG One firmly in control and well-planted.  Shod with the best Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R M01 tyres, there is a load of grip to be had.

The car’s ride height can be hydraulically dropped 37 mm at the front and 30 mm at the rear.  A Drag Reduction System has been implemented into the design for reducing downforce by around 20%.  The drag reduction works by closing the louvres over the front wheels and retracting the rear wing so that the car can accelerate to higher speeds more rapidly.  This feature, of course, is deactivated automatically when the driver hits the carbon ceramic brakes or takes on a corner.

Designed with a carbon-fibre monocoque structure, the platform helps to reduce the weight and enhance the car’s stiffness.  AMG has managed to keep the kerb weight of the AMG One down to below 1700 kg.  A lot of special work has been done in the aerodynamics department.  That’s why the AMG One has an active front splitter, a massive deployable rear wing, louvres that are visible over the top of each of the front wheels, and even a distinctive fin that runs down the backbone of the car.  All of these important components are there to enhance the flow of the air over and around the car.

The AMG One has four electric drive motors, and Mercedes say that the car has an all-electric range of 18.1 km.  Two of the electric motors (located at the front) also work a torque vectoring system across the front axle.  When the ICE engine is running at the same time as the electric motors, the car is in full AWD mode.  The ICE motor is a 1.6-litre turbocharged unit, derived from the 2015 Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s car.  This engine runs alongside the MGU-K hybrid system, giving the AMG One a combined power output of 782 kW.

The AMG One’s official performance stats include a 0-100 km/h time of 2.9 seconds, a 0-200 km/h sprint time of just 7.0 seconds, and a top speed of 352 km/h.

Maro Engel was the car’s driver for the record lap time, and he was able to run the AMG One around the Nürburgring in a record time of 6 min: 35.183 seconds.  This time is eight seconds faster than the previous record set last year by Lars Kern in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS MR.  Maro mentioned that the track conditions weren’t ideal at the time the record was set, suggesting that the AMG One could definitely run the lap faster still with better track conditions.

Remember this BMW?

Remember the Batmobile?  An absolute classic BMW that has been set in motoring history is the old BMW 3.0 CSL.  Known as the Batmobile, the quick and very unique 3.0 CSL BMW Coupe was first manufactured around 1973.  At that time, the car was raced in the European Touring Car Championship, which it won.  In fact, the car was so good that it won the Championship for four years on the trot.

As a celebration, 50 years on from the release of the original Batmobile and as a 50 year celebration of their M division vehicles, BMW are making a very limited line of these brand new BMW 3.0 CSL Coupes that house the most powerful 6-cylinder engine BMW has ever produced for a road-legal vehicle.  Only 50 of the cars will be made, making it an insanely rare vehicle on the road, while also ensuring that it won’t be purchased cheaply.

The new BMW 3.0 CSL comes with a six-speed manual gearbox, RWD, and 412 Nm of power.  The engine has been based on the sweet 3.0-litre twin-turbo engine that is used in the current BMW M4 CSL but with a lift in power.  The BMW M4 can run through the 0-100 km/h dash in a bit over four seconds, and the rare 3.0 CSL will likely better that.

The latest Batmobile, like the M4 CSL, comes with only the two front seats and no back seats.  The interior inside the BMW 3.0 CSL Coupe is similar to the M4 CSL’s in structure and flow, yet there are plenty of special logos, detailing and design features to hark it back to the original.  For instance, you’ll notice the logos on the headrests and some new horizontal stripes on the backrests match the looks of the old 3.0 CSL.

Out on the exterior is where you’ll find the design and bodywork really harking back to the original version, so the pair of round intakes on the sides of the bumper were inspired by the classic CSL’s design, so too were the vertical carbon fins that run down each side of the bonnet.  And check out that chunky hindquarter where the rear wheel arches are beautifully flared and full, and sitting on top of the boot lid is a nice square spoiler to complete the stunning picture.  The majority of the new car’s bodywork will have been constructed from carbon-fibre reinforced plastic with plenty of the parts having been made by hand.

A brand new BMW 3.0 CSL will be one of the rarest BMWs you can buy, and its also one of the most expensive.  Pretty special though!

How Much is Too Much for EV Driving Range?

How long should an EV be able to travel on a full battery?  ‘Neue Klasse’, from BMW, suggests that 1000 kilometres is about right.  BMW’s New Class of vehicles are not far off the runway now, said to be arriving in 2025.  And they are going to be the first BMWs-ever that have been designed from the ground up to be specifically all-electric, EV through-and-through.

That does raise an interesting question: How far should we expect our brand spanking new EVs to go on a full charge (a full tank of electrons instead of a full tank of gas)?  Should we be able to drive from Sydney to Melbourne (877 km), Sydney to Adelaide (1374 km), Sydney to Cairns (2430 km), Sydney to Perth (3932 km), or just Sydney to Wollongong and back (about 175 km) on a full battery?

Most of us are probably sick of driving non-stop after 6–8 hours max in a day.  So, say most of that was done at 100 km/h, then 100 × 8 hours would get you to 800 kilometres before you’d be needing a proper cup of coffee in a proper coffee cup!  It would be then you’d want a rest and a sleep, right?

Perhaps Neue Klasse has got it bang on then.  1000 km would cover an all day blast up the coast from Sydney to Brisbane, which is approximately a total of 911 kilometres via the coastal route.  Get to the end of that journey, and you could pull up at a mate’s place for tea, or a motel, and plug in your EV overnight ready for the long drive back home.

According to Thomas Albrecht (BMW’s head of Efficient Dynamics), in 2025, New Class EV BMWs are set to have “thirty-percent or more” range than what’s currently available now.  That means that the brand-new BMW EV platform with lots of fresh pieces of technology, including 46 mm cylindrical battery cells, should push the Generation 6 batteries out to around 1000 km before they run out of electron juice.  Even though BMW could go further than this 1000 kilometre range, Albrecht suggested that this would be the maximum that BMW will offer because they don’t think that such a long range is necessary.

BMW will debut the new Generation 6 batteries in the 2025 BMW 3 Series EV.  How much do you think we should be able to get out of the battery packs in any new EV bought in 2025–2030?  I’d be interested to know – remembering that battery tech and recharging times will likely have vastly improved by then.