A couple of weeks ago we featured as our Prime Find a car that was a typical small French classic – quirky, slow, noisy, rolls around like a boat on a storm-tossed sea, but exuding Gallic charm and a sense of fun, even if you would struggle to get to 60mph before lunch, having set off after breakfast.
However, while it would be easy to pick out another bunch of French cars that shared these characteristics, France is also the wellspring of motor sport – after all, the world’s first recognised motor race took place in 1895 in France, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, and the country has a rich history of famous sports and racing names, with successes across Grand Prix racing, rallying, and endurance racing in particular. Just think of names such as Alpine Renault, Panhard Levassor, Gordini, and perhaps the most famous of all, Bugatti.
Two more great French motor-sport names are Talbot and Matra, and these two come together on our Prime Find this week, although the one that matters is the latter.
Established in 1945, Matra was originally involved in aeronautics and aerospace – indeed, the name is an abbreviation for Mécanique Aviation TRAction.
In 1963, the company acquired Automobiles René Bonnet, which basically became Matra Automobiles, and began to develop into a significant motorsport and road car manufacturer. It’s first road car was an updated version of the Bonnet Jet, the Matra Djet, which was followed by the 530, the Bagheera, the Murena and the Rancho SUV.
While the company enjoyed relatively limited success with its road cars, it went on to great things in Formula 1 and sports car endurance racing, winning world championships in both categories, most famously with Jackie Stewart behind the wheel (back when F1 cars still had steering wheels), but in 1974 Matra announced its withdrawal from motor racing.
It then went through a period of being bought and sold – first to Chrysler Europe, then to Peugeot in 1979 before being bought back by CEO Jean-Luc Lagardere and embarking on a series of collaborations with Renault.
Our Prime Find dates from the period of ownership by Peugeot, which helps to explain the superfluous addition of the Talbot brand to its name.
I started this piece off by referring to the quirkiness of small French saloons – something equally applicable to large ones, too. Well, this Gallic tendency to be different extends to our Prime Find and it’s immediate predecessor, the Matra Bagheera – we featured one as our Prime Find a couple of years ago .
The Matra-Simca Bagheera, as it was known for most of its life, since it was based largely on Simca mechanicals, had a number of unusual features, though not particularly rare for a sports car. It was a mid-engined, fibreglass bodied, sleek sports coupé, but what really set it apart was it’s seating arrangement, having as it did three seats across the car; one individual seat for the driver, and a two-seat bench for passengers. Seating three across was usually something that was only offered in vans and trucks, not passenger cars and certainly not sports coupés. Indeed, besides the Bagheera and its successor Murena, which retained a version of this set-up, the only other three-seat sports car that comes to mind is the extraordinary McLaren F1, although in this case, the driver sat centrally with one passenger either side and slightly behind him or her.
The world’s only three-seater sports cars?
The Bagheera was built for seven years and over 47,700 examples were produced in that time. While it was well received on its appearance, it was felt that it could use more power (even though the 1294cc engine could push the car to a top speed of 116mph) and it suffered very badly from mechanical failures, a leaky body and most damagingly, rusting chassis problems – so much so that it was awarded the ADAC’s Silver Lemon prize in 1975 for being the new car with the most problems. It’s also believed that the rust problem is the main reason why few remain, despite a decent number having been built.
Some of these lessons were learned and implemented when it came to the Murena, which was introduced in September 1980, and in many respects the Murena is fundamentally an evolution of the Bagheera.
It shared the mid-engine layout, the three-abreast seating – although this time, with three individual seats – and the new body was still made of fibreglass, and still featured a rear hatchback and pop-up headlamps.
However, to address the power issue, larger engines were made available, with the base unit being a 1.6 (the largest engine offered in the Bagheera was 1442cc) and a 2.2-litre, although in the event even this was deemed insufficient. It also came with a 5-speed gearbox as standard as opposed to four.
It had fewer major body panels – 12 instead of 16, so fewer potential leaks, and most importantly, the chassis was fully galvanised steel, a first in a production car.
To control development and production costs, the corporate parts bin was raided for various items from a selection of more mundane vehicles – the two engines came from the Talbot Solara and Tagora respectively, the transaxle from the Citroën CX, door handles from the Peugeot 505, tail light clusters, steering rack and front suspension from the Talbot Horizon.
The sources of many of the Murena’s parts
Where the Bagheera had sleek, smooth lines, the Murena has a sharp, 1980’s wedge-shaped profile, and was for its time, very aerodynamic, boasting a Cd of just 0.328. By comparison, the much-praised Renault Fuego had a drag co-efficient of 0.347. Despite this, in 1.6-litre form it was actually slightly slower than its predecessor, but the 2.2-litre offered significant improvements over the older car, with 115 horses taking the Murena past 120mph. Even this, however, was considered not enough – the Murena received high praise for its driveability (that old curmudgeon LJK Setright called it “Murena the marvellous”) but it was felt the car could handle significantly more power. Indeed, the final 480 cars to roll out of the factory came with a previously aftermarket performance kit already installed, taking power output up to 142bhp and endowing the car – now called the Talbot Matra Murena 2.2S with serious performance – 0-100km/h in just 8.4 seconds and a maximum speed of 210km/h – not bad by any standards.
Unfortunately, despite being considered a fine sporting coupé, the Murena didn’t sell well – it was expensive and suffered by comparison with cheaper rivals such as the VW Scirocco GTi, Alfasud Sprint, and especially with similarly priced alternatives such the Porsche 924 and Alpine A310. Production ceased in July 1983 after just three years and 10,680 examples built – all LHD – with the factory changing to production of the Renault Espace.
Would you choose any of these ahead of a Murena?
From this………………………………………..to this.
So to our Prime Find, which comes up for auction over the weekend of June 20th and 21st with Anglia Car Auctions. Information on this particular car is fairly scant, with little by way of paperwork, and what there is isn’t all correct. It’s listed as a 1988 car, which is obviously incorrect – a quick search via the DVLA reveals this was the year in which the car was first registered in the UK, but it was in fact built in 1981, something which creates a conundrum…
Our car is yellow – a colour which suits it, as it does most cars – although it’s almost certainly been resprayed, since Mimosa Yellow was only offered on the Murena in 1983, and this yellow looks a bit too bright. Interestingly, only 22 Murena’s were produced in Mimosa Yellow, so perhaps one of the seven owners that the car has had since 1988 tried to make it more “exclusive”?
The interior is the standard “Pied de poule Marron”, or brown houndstooth check, so I’m informed by Google Translate, and looks to be in generally good condition with only a few signs of wear based on the photos we have borrowed from the auctioneers.
In any case, the car looks great – the Murena is a well-resolved and purposeful design to my eyes, even if it perhaps promises more than it delivers in terms of outright performance – and sits on a smart set of what I understand to be original alloy wheels, which the odometer says have only covered 100,229 kms (though this is not warranted). It is the base 1.6L, but with so few around, you might have to wait a long time to bag a 2.2. According to the Matra Enthusiasts website there are 33 Matra sports cars in total on the road in the UK, 18 of which are Murena’s.
The auctioneer’s estimate is between £5,750 to £6.750 – really not a lot of money for a very stylish and in the UK at least, uncommon sight on our roads.
As always, we strongly recommend prior inspection before making the decision to buy, especially with so little in the way of a history file, but this looks like a very appealing and inexpensive opportunity to buy a very cool car. If you’re interested, the link to the auctioneer’s website is here.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk