Here’s one for our friends in the UK, a 1985 Talbot Samba Cabrio. It’s in Coventry, United Kingdom and is listed on eBay as a classified ad for £1,950 ($2,668). Thanks to Barn Finds friend and fan, Mr. Richard M., for tracking down this one! He mentions that this is a “bit of a rare car in the UK.”
The Talbot Samba was made for six, short years by Groupe PSA, formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën. Similar cars to the Samba were the Peugeot 104, the Citroën Ln/LNA, and the Citroën Visa. These cars are considered “supermini”, or B-segment cars, which were situated in-between the smaller city car category and bigger family car category. The Talbot Samba was the last new Talbot to be made and the Talbot name was retired after the last Samba rolled off the assembly line in Poissy, France in 1986.
This is a rare cabriolet Samba, Talbot only made 13,062 convertibles out of 270,555 cars in total; the vast majority of them being three-door hatchbacks. Pininfarina actually produced these convertibles for Talbot and they came with one engine: the XY8, a 1.4L, 1,360 cc inline four cylinder with twin one-barrel carburetors and 80 hp. That’s not a lot of power but the car only weighs 850 kg (1,874 lbs) so it’ll get it moving and keep it moving, although it’s obviously not a neck-snapper. Unfortunately, there are no engine photos with the listing, but the engine should look similar to this.
The interior looks good but dirty. The seller says that there are only 11 of these Talbot Samba convertibles left. They also say that this car needs restoration. It doesn’t look like it’s in horrible condition so it’s certainly doable. Whether it’s financially feasible or not is is a question that the next owner will have to answer. Should a rare car like this Talbot Samba Cabrio be saved, given it’s rarity? I’m not sure if being rare equates to being monetarily valuable, but I always like to see rare cars like this one being saved whenever possible; what are your thoughts?
Where is it so I can go blow it up? There’s more than one reason they’re scarce and they’re all related to quality. Horrid little Rabbit wanna bes. A re- badged Plymouth for the Euro market the hard tops leaked so imagine what a rag top will do. In the mid-80’s in London when couldn’t give away cars there was a rash of rebranding and these awful little things were foisted on the unsuspecting. “Talbot!” became the battle cry against anything of poor quality or utterly useless. Can’t bear to even look at it.
well then, not much left to say is there!
does remind me of the horizon i owned – and enjoyed – back in the day. it was no talbot in any sense of the word
This car IS related to the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon and SIMCA . . . got the worst genes of all it’s relatives . . . put it out of it’s misery . . .
A girlfriend at university had a puke green Peugeot version. Should be save really.
Put it away for 20-25 years more, and se if its more interresting, later.
If its was for free, so maybe, but pay for it, noooo.
Pretty sure it’s just that Talbot Horizon nose grafted onto a smaller Peugeot body though. Groovy wheels.
I owned one of these from new (1984) which I sold in favour of something else. Regretting this move I bought an identical car back in 2005 which I still own and sometimes use.
Overall build quality is low, thin and flimsy, especially compared to my daily driver (Volvo). It suffers from rust and body and interior parts are very hard to find, although the convertible top can easily be remade by a specialist. Values are low and I expect them to stay low.
The engine is very reliable and easy to work on. These engines were used throughout the 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s in many Peugeots and Citroens and engine parts are easy to come by. Nice car, bad investment!