That other French car...

just after the war the french had next to nothing in the way of steel and as such the cars suffered from this

everything had gone into the war effort

any older car built today will of course have a better chance of beating off rust

try and find a 200 series volvo with rust in it, unless it has had a dodgy repair job it will be rust free where as you go and have a look at 404's and 504's for that matter and they will generally have rust somewhere and these are cars made in europe for those conditions

anyway getting back to those rusty centuras

did they arrive that way or was it because they maybe sat around for too long before assembly
 
This is all so strange...

What could possibly have been missing from the French steel postwar? They certainly built a lot of stuff out of nothing if they had none. This is old wives' tales stuff.

Simcas had zero rust in the fifties, for instance.

It was in the build and design and also execution of the assembly that rust was encouraged or discouraged. That and I believe some propensity for the high tensile stuff to rust through more quickly once it began.

I don't know much about the Centuras, but they were pressed in Australia anyway! I was never aware that they were particularly rust prone.

And I confirmed over the weekend that doors don't fall off P76s too! By chance I spoke to a number of long-term P76 owners and they totally poo-poohed your crazy notion about this, said it must have been an individual fault of a car you knew and pointed out a bunch of other things they knew did happen to these cars.

Can we stick to facts?
 
By the way, a couple of months ago I could have directed you to a 220 Volvo that had a stack of rust... and it was all over.

It's been thrown out now, of course...

The poms had a huge steel problem after the war, so much so that there were rules about what they built and how they had to export so much of the production. There was one guy came to Australia to buy an XK120 in 1951, for instance, to take back and sell on a market totally devoid of the model.

And steel quality in Pugs might be gauged by this...

I gave a bunch of torque tubes to an engineer... he started making things out of them and remarked what high quality steel it was, how well it turned up etc. Some were used for the airjacks on one or two racing Falcons.

Look also at the 203/403 shocks... the poms did the same thing out of die-cast alloys, Peugeot made them out of massive lumps of iron and steel. And they were bolted (using 7" long 12mm bolts) to great cast steel crossmembers... what about the pommie equivalent? Yeah, right... pressed steel crossmembers and 3/8" bolts just over an inch long!

This whole 'French post war steel problem' is a phurphy... and there are plenty of good 203s still around to prove it.
 
Ray Bell said:
I don't know much about the Centuras, but they were pressed in Australia anyway! I was never aware that they were particularly rust prone.
Click to expand...

well i'll be

amazing what you can find when you go looking :D

Darren Ponton, of the City of Perth, wrote that most Centura bodies were left on the docks for years, delaying its introduction. Immediately prior to the Centura arriving in Australia, the French conducted nuclear tests in the South Pacific, and the Australian Waterside Workers Union introduced bans on handling French products. The newly elected Labour Government were sympathetic (or didn't want to upset them) so the bodies were left on the wharves until 1974 when the tests stopped (for a while). As result of all that "sea air" many Centuras started rusting before they were built!


Ray Bell said:
And I confirmed over the weekend that doors don't fall off P76s too! By chance I spoke to a number of long-term P76 owners and they totally poo-poohed your crazy notion about this, said it must have been an individual fault of a car you knew and pointed out a bunch of other things they knew did happen to these cars.

Can we stick to facts?
Click to expand...

i have already posted quotes about this that stated they fell apart so there are the facts
 
Ray Bell said:
By the way, a couple of months ago I could have directed you to a 220 Volvo that had a stack of rust... and it was all over.

It's been thrown out now, of course...
Click to expand...


by 200 series i mean the 244,245,264,265 volvos

if they have never had a bodgy repair they simply don't rust

i don't know why it took the french so long to learn how to make cars that didn't rust

it wasn't untill the 205/405 that they started getting it right

when my mother had her 203 she was forever getting sections put in the rear guards as they were always rusting out every couple of years

earlier pugs rust as do the rens and cits

even most of the italian stuff rusted out and if you had something without rust you were just damn lucky

Europe had big problem with steel after the war where as the states didn't and when i find the notes on it i'll post it up for you
 
Ray Bell said:
This whole 'French post war steel problem' is a phurphy... and there are plenty of good 203s still around to prove it.
Click to expand...


you can browse through this if you like

http://library.thinkquest.org/17120/gather/us/1000010.html

and there is much more about it and i'll find some articles here as well that i'll scan in

France was in dire straights after the war both with resources and population

anything and everything was used up to keep the munitions up to the armies and after the war the EEC was started up to try and even everything out across europe but of course that was a battle in itself

no wonder there wasn't any materials around to build quality steel
 
Could the Talbot Sunbeam-lotus be considered a French car?

Even though it was designed by Chrysler, it was released by Peugeot when they took over Chrysler Europe.

It won the rally championship in 1981, but was dropped from sale shortly after.

http://www.sunbeam.org.au/models/talsun.htm

The 0-60 mph figures aren't to bad either.

:cheers:
 
2 pugs said:
Could the Talbot Sunbeam-lotus be considered a French car?
Click to expand...

I can’t see why not, sort of as French as a Chrysler Centura GL 4 litre in a Body by Simca, Soul by Valiant way of thinking.

Then again I’ve got a newsletter from Peugeot UK in the 1980’s that details an all Peugeot-Talbot gathering, included in the lineup were all the old Rootes Group (Hillman/Humber/Sunbeam/Singer etc) cars which were then considered Peugeot-Talbot by association…………
 
Ray Bell said:
Would be good to find out if the heads are available... surely they'd have to be?

Yes, the Simca Car Club of WA sort of branched out and became the Club for the whole of Australia. Being a couple of hours behind the rest of the country, they had time to change their minds and recognise that Simcas are worth something before it was too late.
Click to expand...
The original Vedette had 84 Hp, so the Ardun heads made quite a difference! (130hp)
Graham
 
And in production until 1971... there must be some around South America that can be picked up.

What a magic hotrod engine, if you were into that sort of thing! Just imagine the gaping faces of those who don't know what it is...
 
Originally posted by Westair
Another couple of sites on the Vedette engine. As Ray said it would be ideal in a rod.
Click to expand...

That first site is about the 4.2 litre truck engine only... not the Vedette engine...

Interesting stuff on there, especially how Simca uprated the engine to 2.35 litres and gained a bundle of horsepower over what they'd inherited from Ford.

Also the lineage... the V8-60 type engine was used first in England, then with some changes in France and America. And there was a pre-war Vedette... undoubtedly just like the Pilot, but with perhaps 1937 Ford styling cues.

Nothing yet in the way of drawings of the ohv conversion? That's the one I think would be great in a hotrod, by the way.
 
2 pugs said:
Could the Talbot Sunbeam-lotus be considered a French car?
Click to expand...

When you get down to it though, there is a lack of any actual French involvement in it.

English engine.
English chassis.
English body.

Whereas the Alpine, Horizon and Tagora definitely have major French involvement.
 
Yes, I'd say you're right there...

And Talbot had a British arm and an French arm right back to the days before we were around too.

By the way, Mathis and 'Matford' got a mention in one of those sites quoted by Westair. Ford bought out Mathis and called the cars 'Matford'... at least for a time. I guess that includes those cars seen in Mrs 'arris Goes to Paris.
 
Ray Bell said:
While you consider these points, I would appreciate it if this thread could revert to being a positive one about Simcas and other French makes being officially accepted in the Aussiefrogs forum.
Click to expand...


i was bieng positive

i just wanted to know about the centuras as everyone of them i have ever come across was riddled with rust and i wanted to know why

good engines but a very light rear end and rusty bodies which is a pity as it had the makings of a very good car or something that could have been much better than what it was/is

anyway for your perusal


The height of industrial monolithism
From 1950 to 1960, steel production again rose appreciably, but the trend in steel production at international level showed the risks inherent in industrial monolithism. Moreover, the iron ore which had led to the creation of the Luxembourg steel industry was no longer a trump card in view of its low iron content and the gradual exhaustion of the deposits


Most iron ore mined in France contains high levels of impurities, and domestic production has declined in recent decades as the French steel industry has turned to purer ores imported from abroad. Bauxite, or aluminum ore, is mined in substantial quantities, mainly in the southeast.
 
Ray Bell said:
Yes, I'd say you're right there...

And Talbot had a British arm and an French arm right back to the days before we were around too.

By the way, Mathis and 'Matford' got a mention in one of those sites quoted by Westair. Ford bought out Mathis and called the cars 'Matford'... at least for a time. I guess that includes those cars seen in Mrs 'arris Goes to Paris.
Click to expand...



i once heard that shelby was also involved with sunbeam/talbot at some stage or was this just in engalnd and nothing to do with france
 
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