Fan of fjords? Well, Norway has plenty of those, and if you visit for the scenery, might as well also swing by to see this 1955 Simca 9 Coupe de Ville, for sale at finn.no, for kr35,000, or about $3100. Bring your trailer to Stavern, Norway, because this car is in pieces. Thanks to Ole S. Hageberg for spotting this rarity! Simca traces its roots back to the 1930s when it was founded by Fiat in France to build Balillas and Arditas to sell to French customers. Amazingly, Simca managed to escape devastation during WWII. This fortunate circumstance was supposedly due to the close personal relationship between Simca’s director Henri Pigozzi and the Agnelli family of Fiat, who in turn was favored by Mussolini, who was allied with the Germans (whew!). After escaping post-war nationalization by the French government, Simca turned its attention to producing Fiats again, now badged as Simcas. But fortune smiled yet once more: the economy improved and Simca was able to introduce its first in-house design, the 9 Aronde.
Several body styles were offered, and the car was popular enough to boost Simca to second place measured by sales behind Renault by the early 1950s. The prettiest offering was the partially aluminum two-door coupe, built at considerable expense by Facel-Métallon, called the Sport. Sales struggled under the weight of its price, which exceeded the Porsche 356. In 1955, the Sport was renamed the Coupe de Ville. The sheet metal was identical to the Sport, but the interior was upgraded, and the 1221 cc four-cylinder engine – now called the Flash – was slightly reworked with a better Solex carburetor, and higher compression than a regular Aronde. Output reached 50 hp, up from barely 45. Rowing through the column-shift four-speed manual could get the wheels up to 85 mph. This listing includes several photos of the engine bay as well as dozens of parts. Remember! it’s easy to disassemble a project, but even a car you know well can turn into a mystery when you must reassemble it.
The seller indicates that the front seats are missing; otherwise, the car is complete. The elegant gauges, chrome trim inside the cockpit, and leather surfaces benchmarked the luxury approach unique to the Coupe de Ville. Evidence of prior rust repair shows in this photo of a partially missing floor pan. Plenty of body repair awaits the new owner.
The seller asserts that the car is valuable when complete, buttressed by the low production of just 96 examples. While I didn’t find any Coupe de Villes for sale, nor any sold recently, there are a few Sports around. Those appear to top out at around $45k. This daunting project will absorb scads of time and most likely a few bucks as well. What do you think – part it out, or restore it?
Can’t picture Maybelleen in this Coupe Dr Ville. Where is the spell check when I need it?.
“Maybellene” herself might consider it an infringement on the “De” Ville she came to know. Nor should there be a period after the question mark. ;)
Part it out?? To who, the other 43 people in the world who still have one of the remaining existing ones?
I made the mistake of buying one of the 39 remaining 1948 Playboy cars in the world. Needless to say, parts are non-existent, owner support and enthusiasm is zero, and all the people who own the remaining cars are so old that they don’t even own computers or cell phones… So if you buy this Simca, you’re pretty much at a dead end before you’ve even started the restoration.
Good point, but the mechanicals are based on the Aronde and there are tons of those around. The Flash motor might find a home since the rest of the Aronde models were slower. The big barrier in my mind is its location. This guy should haul the parts off to Auto Moto d’Epoca or some such.
Looking at this pile of parts reminds me how guys end up alcoholics after working on nightmares like this. Where do you find two bucket seats for this? Not like a junker is avail. to rob parts from.
Fun car story. I know little about these and sadly don’t care. I once ran an auto body shop that had been an old Chrysler , Plymouth, Desoto and yes Simca dealer. We clean out a section that had been walled up in the early 60s when the place closed and all the cars service records from the early 50s through when it closed were in there. These cars were as the saying went, “the garage mechanics friend “. It looked like everyone they sold came back and visited routinely, lol. Some of the now exotic cars that were sold, new prepped and service was amazing. The other neat thing was it was a time when everything was written down, customer’s name, complaint, vin, color, time. This was my first introduction to Simcas, never seen one in the real but I got to read about many that left their mark on paper long ago.