Day: Mar 3, 2017

Reminders

The last Mitsubishi Galant had a good innings: 2003 to 2012. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of this one until about an hour ago.

2004 Mitsubishi Galant: source
2004 Mitsubishi Galant: source

Like Mendeleev, I had an idea that if there was an eighth generation Mitsubishi Galant there might be a ninth. Call it inductive reasoning. Sure enough, I found one. It’s credited to Olivier Boulay. It has a lot of Ford Mondeo in the glasshouse and the surfacing but the lamps are simply generic. It’s quite a change from the previous models which usually managed neat homogeneity.  Continue reading “Reminders”

Theme : Simca – Going the Distance

The transverse-engined, hatchback 1100 is undeservedly overshadowed by other trailblazers. But not only did it get there very early, its influence travelled surprisingly far.

Simca 1100
Simca 1100

Introduced in 1967 and available as 3 and 5 door hatchbacks, a neat estate as well as van and pickup versions, the Simca 1100 had a sizeable niche of the French market available to itself for years. Renault didn’t fill the hatchback gap between the 4/5/6 and the 16 until the 14 of 1976, the same year that conservative Peugeot put a fifth door into the 104.

Structurally zealous or just snobbish, Citroen previously allowed a hatchback only on the Dyane until the Visa of 1978 and the GSA of 1979. Despite this, and its 18 year life, the Simca is another of those cars, like the Autobianchi Primula with which it shares conceptual roots, that seems to have been excluded from the condensed history of the evolution of the motor car. Continue reading “Theme : Simca – Going the Distance”