Simca
Simca is a now-defunct French car manufacturer.The name SIMCA stands for SociÃÂétÃÂé Industrielle de Mecanique et de Carosserie Automobile. The founder of Simca was Henri Pigozzi who at first manufactured Fiat models in France. The first Simca factory was in the French town of Nanterre. All these happened from 1934 up to 1951. The Simca Aronde was the first Simca car (and not a Fiat replica) and was launched in 1951. It had a 1200cc engine and its production reached 100,000 units yearly. After this success, Simca bought the brand of Ford France S.A. in 1954 and in 1958 it bought the brand Talbot.
The American car manufacturer Chrysler Corporation, who wanted to enter the European car market, gained 15% of the Simca stocks (together with the British manufacturer Rootes), and all the Simca models manufactured after 1967 had the Chrysler logo as well. In 1961 the Simca started to manufacture all of her models in the ex-Ford France factory in Poissy and sold the factory at Nanterre to CitroÃÂën. It was in 1961 that the Simca 1000 was introduced and it was followed by many many more models, innovative and successful.
Some of the most known Simca models were the Simca 1000, the Simca 1100 and the Simca 1100 Rancho, the Simca 1301/1501, the Simca Horizon, the Simca 1307/1508, the Simca Solara and the Talbot Arizona (remember Simca owned the Talbot brand). The last one was launched as Peugeot 309, since the brandname of Simca was finally bought by Peugeot and this was the end of this French brand. The Peugeot 309 used Simca engines until October 1991 when they were replaced by Peugeot engines.
The Simcas are still on the road in many European countries and were also manufactured in Spain and Sweden. After the end of the Simca brand, the construction line of the Simca 1307 was transferred to USSR by Moskvitch and was used to build the Moskvitch Aleko whose exterior characteristics are almost exactly the same with the French model. The Moskvitch company claims that the similarities with the Simca 1307 have to do only with the exterior of the car, but i guess that the only way to find out if it is true, is to have an Aleko and find it out by ourselves.