Here on Motoring Weekly we have written about all three parts of this entity and this grouping of marques didn’t last that long in an industry that was hit by the Great Depression of the late 1920s and was constantly evolving with smaller companies either going bust or being gobbled up by larger conglomerates. The three companies had an interesting evolution of their own … [Read more...]
Sunbeam
Over the past few years, Motoring Weekly has described the brands that became part of the Rootes Group and for this article we add to the list with the Sunbeam company. Sunbeam were famous not only for road cars but also aero engines, which ended up in Land Speed Record winning cars. The Sunbeam company was originally founded as a bicycle maker in 1877. John Marston was a … [Read more...]
Darracq
Motoring Weekly's marque articles have covered some of the earlier car companies that have been swallowed up by other manufacturers that are still producing vehicles. This week I am going to talk about Darracq, another pioneer in the European market. Alexandre Darracq founded his car company in 1896. He was a Frenchman of Spanish origins and was an entrepreneur and astute … [Read more...]
Simca
Over the last few years, I have described several European companies that combined or had a touch point with Chrysler and this article describes the foundation for Chrysler in Europe. It is Simca or the Societe Industrielle de Mecanique et de Carroserie Automobile. Founded in 1934 as a new entity, it was the evolution of a 10 year business venture between two Italians, Henri … [Read more...]
Matra
MATRA – Mecanique Avion Traction was founded in 1945 as a defence company with the intention of creating a twin engined plane that was capable of 500mph (800kph). For the first 20 years they concentrated on defence and aeronautics but in the early 1960s they bought Automobiles Rene Bonnet and created Matra Automobiles. Rene Bonnet made very light sports cars and used Matra … [Read more...]