Junkyard Find: 1964 Simca 1000
During my recent trip to Sweden, I took in a Folkrace, saw many old American cars on the street, visited a farm full of restored classic Chryslers, and, of course, went to the junkyard. We’ve seen this 1966 Toyota Crown station wagon and this 1963 Ford Taunus 17M at Bloms Bilskrot in Söråker, and now here’s a very rusty example of a car that was popular in Europe but never made much of an impression in North America: the Simca 1000.
We have a single Simca racing in the 24 Hours of LeMons, but it’s a front-drive Simca 1100 (which was badged as a 1204 in the United States). I hope to see a Vedette racing in the series someday.
Was the last owner of this car named Greta Swedin?
The top-down rust, no doubt caused by decades of birch-forest leaf mulch building up on the car, is pretty scary.
Still, some pieces for a Swedish Simca restorer remain (if there are any Simca restorers in Sweden, that is).
The 1000 has a rear engine with water cooling.
The 1000 has a respectable racing heritage in Europe, so perhaps some of the parts on this one may go into a rally car.
Room for the relatives!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Simca 1000. Rear engine car, almost done right. Simca sold nearly 1.6 million of these fascinating little cars. You can read all about the design and evolution of the Simca 1000 here: http://www.corvair.org/chapters/njace/simca_1000.html
2.10.2020 Late to the party here . Good to hear these were good little econo boxes . Looks cute to me . French cars are.....'different' (means weird), once you understand this they're wonderful ~ I've owned and loved Peugeots and Citroens, a Machinist at my last workplace was a Cajun who loved his 196? Simca . -Nate