The Italians offered an incredible amount of limited coach built specials across many brands throughout the years. This sleek and stylish Simca has all of the magic words you want to hear when talking about an Italian automobile. Limited, aluminum, and featured at the Palm Springs Concours in 1951. Many decades after that showing, this Simca is still a breath taking little machine that is mostly complete. In need of restoration, this unique find is currently offered for the opening bid of $30,000. Be sure to look over this unusual find here on eBay out of Long Beach, California.
The 1221cc 4 cylinder engine is neatly nestled in the engine compartment and appears to be quite complete. With no mention of the engines condition, I would assume that the engine has been refreshed at some point in time based on its cleanliness. Rather glossy and clean, the engine compartment itself is quite spiffy, although certainly repainted some point in time.
Miraculously this Simca survived a fire with only minor damage. All of the glass was fractured or broken from the fire, but the rest of the car seems quite fair otherwise. The top of the passenger side fender has been cut out likely due to a bad dent or perhaps a metal rip. Also the driver front fender suffers from a mild dent near the headlight, as well as a crack in the aluminum. Although this is mostly an aluminum special, there are some steel body parts including the doors, roof, and rockers. The rockers are rotted, but aren’t terrible. The seller cut some rust out of the floors and made templates for the necessary patch panels. All of the glass has been replaced with the exception of the rear window, which the seller is including a later model glass that needs to be cut down to fit. Italian specials can often bring fierce prices and this little Italian is a sharp and stylish little special that would be fabulous to see restored. Certainly a special and worthwhile machine to restore, are you a fan of this stylish Italian?
Wikipedia has Simca as a French automaker, started by Fiat. And yes, I am a fan of this oddball car…it’s exactly the kind of car I gravitate towards.
These cars were branded by SIMCA, built by Facel Vega, and designed by Battista Pininfarina, you get about all the best names from 1960 in one package :) https://byronriginos.com/2015/10/20/byrons-1950-simca-8-sport-coupe/
The Simca 8 Sport has a hand formed carrosserie body by Facel-Metallon – think Facel before Vega. See Simca by Facel page “1948-1950 : Robe italienne pour sportive embourgeoisée” for details – Google translate can assist with English:
https://www.simcafacel.levillage.org/spip.php?article165
The asking price appears exceptionally high considering La Vie de L’automobile suggests a value of € 45,000 ($ 51,000) for a ’48 -’51 8 sport coupé. Roughly matches other pricing on the web.
On the positive side for this car it does have most if not all the rare bits, rare Marchal headlamps, and French Robergel wire wheels.
MacVaugh has posted an excellent link on the Simca 8 sport coupé above.
This one would be interesting to find parts for. The engine is basically a Fiat 1100 millecento punched out to 1221cc. It is still not very fast. Abarth did do some wizardry on Simca cars and engines, but this isn’t one of them. My guess is a lot of the drivetrain is also millecento and probably a lot of the trim and switch gear.
Glass is available but body panels availability looks like you get a flat sheer of metal that you bend into the appropriate shape.
Car does resemble a cisitalia though I doubt as quick.
The Cisitalia is not a fast car by any means either. Body work is aluminum. These cars have all the provenance in terms of components and designers. It shares lines with the Maserati, Cicitalia and even the 1949 Ferrari 166 Inter Stablimenti Farina. French cars as a whole are on the rise and more generally accepted than they were just a few years ago and I think the SIMCA will pop in value soon. If all there, this is a good buy. Parts are available in Switzerland, Italy and France from the specialty gurus. Gorgeous little cars in person.
suffered from a fire….good luck with the wiring …..
There´s a beautiful original car for sale with a Portuguese dealer at 45000€, making this option rather expensive for what is on offer..
Not much go for the money in either case, however….
I am restoring a 1959 Talbot Lago Coupe America chassis #0001 out of 5 built that were assembled by the French car maker Simca in 1959. It has the Simca version of the Ford V8.
Absolutely gorgeous. Nice job.
Greetings All,
Personally, I love it.
Am I the only one who figures the rusty rocker panel must be a bolt on unit because of the Aluminum body work?
This is a beautiful car and definitely worthy of a quality restoration. The car has a unique shape and nice trim details but the small engine keeps it from moving into more valuable territory inhabited by more powerful cars. I especially like the front grill, which is different than most of the Simca Sport 8 cars I’ve seen. This would be a nice project but probably not a profitable one, at least not at the present time. Part of the fun with classic cars is enjoying them on the road and I suspect this Simca is at best a marginal driver by today’s standards. Aside from VW Buses, being slow is rarely a term of endearment.