Hooniverse Weekend Edition – A 1967 Simca 1000 Coupe

I hope you are enjoying the Interesting Project Car Weekend about cars that were inspired by Jim Yu’s article about the Anti-Football run held this past New Years Day. We explored cars that originated in Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, so how about an unusual French Coupe styled by the Italian Design House of Bertone. Introducing the Simca 1000 Coupe by Bertone. According to the Simca Talbot Club, which is based in the UK:

With the end of the Aronde range, Simca had no sports model in their line up, and so the designers looked at the possibility of creating a sports coupe based on the Simca 1000. Bertone was the styling house selected, and an attractive two door coupe was first offered to the motoring public in 1963. The car was styled by Giorgio Giugiaro, then starting his career at Bertone. He was later to produce such cars as the Lotus Espirit, original Volkswagen Golf, Passat and Sirocco. At launch Car magazine described the 1000 Coupe as “the world’s neatest small coupe”. The main mechanical change in the 1000 Coupe compared with the saloon was the adoption of disc brakes all round. It retained the standard 944 cc engine. While only produced in relatively small numbers, the 1000 Coupe proved popular with the younger, upmarket set it was aimed at. The car was an attractive alternative to the similarly rear engined Renault Floride. Production stopped early in 1967.

This particular Simca 1000 is advertised as a 1967 model year, so it could be conceivably one of the last of these very pretty French Coupes. It was purchased by the current owner from a mechanic who was working on the car, because the previous owner could not pay his bill. The intent of the current owner was to install a Hayabusa Motor in it, but he seems to have lost interest in doing so. Now its your turn… The little 1000cc motor is seized up (I know exactly what that feels like), so it is going to take a lot of work to get it running. Good luck finding part for this engine here in the states, but there seems to be a great deal of support for the sedan versions within continental Europe, so brush up on your French if you want to tackle this project. Other than the engine, the rest of the car looks presentable with a little bit of rust here and there, and the interior looks to be intact. This would be a very unusual car to restore, and to take part in cruising events, but it could easily be a great 24-Hours-of-LeMons candidate. It could be Trailing Throttle Oversteer II… And speaking of price, this little French Coupe stands at $1,100. See the eBay listing here, and tell me what you think about this car.