Rear engined '60s French? Rare as hen's teeth tearaway is tatty, bruised - and loves to be abused
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2024
- PPC's Will Holman discovers Mick's twin Weber shod, rear engined Simca Rallye 2. Beautifully restored and wheeled out on sunny Sundays this is not. Behind the rough and ready looks hides a ridiculously rare French b-road blaster that gets properly used - until it throws a fan belt. How does it sound? Raspy and delicious - and it's garlic coloured. We couldn't get enough of it.
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Gotta love a bloke who’s so wholeheartedly into his favourite marque! It’d be great to see the rest of his fleet.
Great video; thank you!! I am French and have known these in the early 1970s. We thought they were crap, and probably they were. Today, it's just great memories.
Glad to jog some memories for you! It's a very cool - and incredibly rare - car. Love that it gets used properly too
Nostalgia: Pretending old things weren't shit.
@@constantin1959 Crap no I don’t think so just rusty ones but they are not the only who suffered from it .
This is the car we all (6 children) were taken to school with each day. Next to the school was a field and sometimes my dad started “rallying” with this car on that field. Hilarious. Many times we had to push him out of the mud (and got home all dirty to meet a very angry mum…..). Good memories
Brilliant , remember racing Mike at the PPC 999 challenge at Curborough Sprint track. His car caught fire at one point and he just jumped out and put the fire out before carrying on like nothing had happened. That was his green Simca.
That's exactly the type of content I look forward to watching 👌
Glad to hear it!
Mick's a great bloke, always at local car shows. His brother is just as nice and has a pair of Matra's.
Great video.
I was talking to Mick at the weekend and had a guided tour of this very machine.
What a car! What a man, absolute legend😀
The man is one in a million. Great spending time with him and his car collection is just brilliant
When I was 23, we had a Simca van. It was prom for not starting due to the starter motor getting stuck. We had a small toffee hammer in the van which we would use to tap the starter motor so it would engage. Worked every time. Eventually we couldn’t select a gear? On closer inspection the engine mounts had rusted away and the engine had dropped in the engine bay. Next stop was the scrap yard..
I’m 65 now
I had a Simca car in the early '80's , I was 22 or 23 . It wasn't a bad little car , but it had a blowing exhaust , which I didn't bother to fix . At the time I had two girlfriends , 1 I lived with and foolishly the other lived too close to home. I went out and ran a couple of errands and popped around to see GF # 2 . Through the frosted glass porch, I could see two figures . I thought it was GF 2 and her mother or sister talking . Shock horror when I knocked on the front door it was GF # 2 and GF #1 ! .I abruptly turned on my heels and headed straight for the car . Both daid on unison, " John , we can talk about this ! " . It never took me so long to start a car in my life , it seemed an eternity. GF 1 was striding to the car and GF 2 was out in her front garden by now , her mother and sister were both looking down front an upstairs bedroom window . Neighbours were out gardening or working on their cars . It seemed like the whole world was watching the saga unfold . I locked the passenger door just as GF 1 was about to open it, and I drove off without a backward glance . I can't remember where I bought that car or where I sold it, but I can recall that incident as though it were recorded on video for prosperity.
I married the wrong 1 !
Wonderful car
I had lots of fun driving a Simca 1000 when i was a young chap. Great car
Love the well worn look. Proper car !
Rough and ready 😎
Ive met this guy at car shows many times over the years...great to chat with and knows his stuff 👍
Mick is a legend 👌 loving the PPC TH-cam, great job of launching it & keeping the momentum guys 👍👍
My father had a Simca van that was bright orange. Great little rare car.
That'd be a great looking thing in orange
Superb. Always enjoy seeing Mick and his Simcas at Frank's Charity Track Days at Blyton
Love it, I’m also French and owned an 1100 in the 80s such a nippy little car. Always kept a bag of sand in the front to keep it on the road 😂
Haha, sounds about right 🤣 Glad to see the video has made it to France!
Out of interest: did you see it shared somewhere or just on TH-cam itself?
@@ppcmagazine
I’m actually in the UK and was when I owned the Simca, but found you directly on TH-cam. My daily is a 1975 GS 😁
@@ThierryDixon oh very cool! Will is rather in love with old Citroens. He'd be rather jealous of that!
I bought one of these in 1979 when we had 2 small children. It was a great little car and just the right size for us, but the winters were bad back then and there was a lot more snow. Because it was rear engined and had a light body it was hard to keep it in a straight line in the snow. A number of times I turned a corner and the back end overtook me, and I ended up facing the wrong way. Turning into the skid just made the car go round in a circle, a sort of car version of dancing on ice. 😮 Also because the engine was at the back then the boot was in front, so if I lifted it up to put shopping in, my mates would stop to help because they thought the car had broken down. When it did break down ( which sad to say was quite frequently) and I'd got the engine lid up, people would drive past waving because they thought I was putting stuff in the boot.
This was great - wicked car.
Always loved the Simca’s
You've got to love a small yellow car.
Through the 1970s simca was a cheap car to buy, and compared to rest of market they were fast as Hell. Great video. Lovely history of a car of yesteryear. Peace and goodwill.
These were rare when new . Remember as a child seeing one on holiday .
Passed my driving test in a Simca 1000 in 1965.
Thoroughly enjoyed that - thank you !
Love this! My parents had new Simca's in the 70's so I can relate to this and the Simca 1000 Rallye 2 was a really effective tarmac Rally Car in the early to mid 70's. Well done for finding this guy!
Glad you enjoyed it John!
Yea, Great video as always. A tour of the rest of his cars would be good! 😊
We did get a few shots of his driveway and collection actually. May have to edit all that together too for some extras...!
Drive past thia car weekly. Saw it close up at a car show the other week.
Mick has been into simcas since I were alad.
Outstanding!
My Dad once considered buying a Simca 1100. A run from Drumchapel to Dumbarton (say 9 miles) and back convinced him that the engine was too noisy to live with.
It was about time someone honoured our British Simcadeity Mick!!
Damn right!
Sure i have met Mick at the Motorist Hub in Yorkshire, remember a chap with a Simca Pickup, but i could be wrong.
What a great looking little car, a car thst gets used.
yes it was my pickup.
My mother had (I think) a Simca 1000. The only thing I remember was when the windscreen needed replacement. Told the guy doing the work to be careful, but he said "Nah, this stuff won't hurt you" and punched through the remains. Many bandages later......................
Many years ago I had a Simca 1000 Special in bronze metallic. It was a tired old lump even back then. It handled ok as I recall, it had the negative camber on the rear end like the Rally 11. At some point the 1300 had been replaced by a wheezy 850, fabulous upgrade! Overall I didn't find what was special about it, nothing as I recall, but it did me for a couple of years until I could afford something better.
I remember seeing a fair few Simcas in Rally trim in the early 90’s when on holidays with my then girlfriend now wife. I was rallying at the time and was
Interested in all rally cars, I often see them in Continental Hillclimb videos, nice quirky little cars.
yes that was me with the pickup.
.
Simca 1000 was my very first car back in the 1960s, flat as a fart so I progressed to a Renault R8 Gordini.... wish I still had that as apparently they are worth a fortune now and particularly sought after in France
Not to mention that this particular example is a Chrysler Simca ( much like their rootes group etc takeovers ) 1970 Chrysler took over Simca iirc, always liked these but it’s always been Chrysler era imps that I’ve had 👍
Years ago I had the chance to buy such a car here in Austria which was totally rotted out plus a 1000 body shell to transfer all the bits into; owner was an acquaintance and asked €3000 for the lot but I was a poor student with nowhere to store the cars or work on them... The owner sold them after a family expansion and I'm pretty sure there's an additional Rallye 2 on our roads by now. It is what it is...
This car was stored away in a garage just outside Llanelli South Wales for many years. Bodywork wise it looks like it could now do with some tlc - but what a fantastic car!
Definitely rough and ready!
still going strong. I got it from Llanelli in 2003.
I remember a friend bought a brand new one…first week he tried to switch on the windscreen wipers and found that the Dealer fitted radio had been mounted between the wiper mechanism and jammed! It didn’t really matter as he wrote it off a week later!!
It was probably rusted out by the time he wrote it off too 🤣
I can remember the company I was apprenticed to in 1976 had a simca van reliable but a little basic.
My mother had a new Simca back in the day- hoot to drive but soon rusted away
When I was a kid I grass tracked one of these, no weight over the front, couple of bumps then no steering, then ditch/ bales. 2 laps😂
There is a glimpse of one of these in an episode of the Sweeney, the one with the two posh guys robbing rich people, frustratingly you don't see the whole car but it's definitely one of these wee beasts.
Will have to look that up!
@@ppcmagazine Just dug out my box set lol, episode is called Chalk and Cheese.
@@Markycarandbikestuff perfect - thank you!
I owned 3 standard SIMCA 1000 at the time beige was the dominant color then.
I liked the seating position and taking out the backseat completely you could load easily true the backdoors.
At the time most cars maxed out a little over 100 kmh it was for the time an adequate means of transportation.
It brought me a 😉 then and now.
🇳🇱. Around the corner of our house stood an orange with black Simca. It was there about 20 years an then it was gone. 350 years ago. Already then it was a rare car. Do not know the number plate but i hope it still exists.
Simca Rallye win. Still hill climbed here in France. Thought they were awful in the 70’s. Bag of cement in the front to improve the handling! Now mythical.😊 I believe the owner is all over Retrorides and has a few
Cool!
How does he cope with the rust!!!
I'm sure i remember Mick from the ppc tracker at Oulton park all those years ago.
Looking back at some pictures I'm absolutely certain. He was in a green 1300 with a red roof, and I seem to recall that he did a head gasket in the morning session, and had the car back out for the afternoon session.
Sounds like Mick to us! He's had a string of Simcas (and still has loads). He's been part of the PPC community for years so it's almost certainly him
What an interesting quirky little thing. That must be a hoot in the wet.
Tail happy at the best of times 😁
Be a hoot in any weather 😄
Engine over drive wheels means they are quite grippy, they are far more prone to understeer rather than oversteer, sure with the power upgrades and a lot of provocation on a wet or loose surface you’ll get a small modicum of oversteer, but it’s in no way like mk1 escort/chevette/bmw etc with their traditional layouts , simcas handle very similarly to Hillman Imps tbh👍
in the comments below it mentions the car being in a garage near Llanelli for years. That's where I got it from in 2003. As for dealing with rust... Before getting into SIMCAs mid '80s I was well into dealing with terminal rust.... on Fords... Anglias, Escorts & Capris plus the odd Triumph....!!!
My father had a Simca 1000 Spécial, which was technically identical to the Rallye1 but less sporty, and more "luxurious". I am afraid we did not have much luck with it. Constant overheating problems and rust, rust, rust. It drove fine though, if there was no wind.
I passed my test in my dad's J reg Simca 1100 GLS
Interesting and thankyou .... If they didn't import the Rallye 2 to the UK ... How is that car right hand drive? Has Mr Holman converted it?
It was converted to Rhd for the original importer back in '79. That's when it got the V reg back then an older import got the current reg.
@@MichaelWard-c9g ... Thank you for the information
Great little car! Was that filmed near Lancaster?
Just outside Chesterfield!
Este Simca 1000 rallye 2 veio para lutar com outro fantástico carro francês o Renault Gordini 1300 , eram carros maravilhosos que foram escola para muitos pilotos de Rallye da época. Tive a sorte de guiar um Gordini dum amigo meu nos anos 70 e era uma máquina diabólica, com 105 cv, caixa de 5 velocidades, quatro travões de disco, algo muito raro naqueles tempos e um peso de 700Kg?, nunca mais me vou esquecer dos "slides" que se conseguiam com este carro. O Simca era muito parecido, mas como apareceu bem mais tarde nunca teve a aura do Gordini infelizmente. Grandes tempos em que éramos nós que pilotávamos o carro e não ele que nos conduzia.
Apart from rust they weren't too bad didn't handle anything like as well as the Imp
Hi, great video. May I suggest that the driving part should be a bit longer and more in depth. Have an onboard camera where you talk about the experience, handling, acceleration, steering feedback etc.. Otherwise nice video.
Noted! You are right, it could have been more extensive
Are these from Chesterfield ive seen them on ur drive way not guna disclose wt street thats if it is the same guy 🤙🤙🤙
Hi Shane. It’s in that neck of the woods, yes.
@ppcmagazine I've seen them most of my younger days haha I know exactly where he's from lol
Back when sex was safe and driving sports cars really dangerous
Had metro mg 1985
Guys, less talking - more driving!