Description
A complete history of the company and the cars.
Simca was established in 1934 by an Italian, native of Turin, Enrico Teodoro Pigozzi, who was funded by the Fiat-owning Agnelli family to set up an operation in France to recycle WWI scrap metal as there were loads lying about, endless shell-casings, abandoned vehicles, to send it all to Fiat in Turin for turning into metal products for Fiat cars.
Pigozzi, with financial backing from the Agnelli family, started a new venture, that of importing Fiat cars into France, but he was stymied by the French tax authorities who increased tax on imported cars to 100% of the landed value. Instead, Pigozzi, described as a fin renard in French, a wily old fox, began importing kits of parts from Fiat in Turin to assemble into complete cars as these were taxed at a lower rate.
The front cover image is that of the cover of a Simca Cinq brochure – it was a direct copy of the Fiat 500 ‘Topolino’ and introduced in France and Italy at the same time – during WWII when Simca was part of the GFA grouping (General Francaise Automobile) when Simca was struggling with supplies of raw materials e.g. copper for wiring, rubber for tyres and good quality steel sheet.
There is a mix of black and white and colour pictures on every page, it is 186 pages long and includes image credits, a references page together with a bibliography and an Index.
