Talk:Simca Vedette

Welcome everybody interested in further expanding this stubby article! There is so much more to say about the lovely Vedette, but I have restrained myself to including the info I can find sources for (though I am afraid I might not have been too consistent on that and add a few words from myself...). Anyway, assistance in finding sources would be appreciated, and if you have some info on the model that you can't find sources for, drop it here!

Some stuff I have found:

• [1] - A Motorlegend article in French about the second-generation Simca Vedette (referred to as Chambord). Access is granted only to a short summary, but perhaps somebody is a subscriber with this site? There are also links to the Ariane, previous Vedette (referred to as Versailles) and Presidence there. Some of the information I have accessed through Google Translate (long live the "high-speed motorboat"!) seems to contradict the info from the sources I used...
• [2] A period French commercial for the Chambord (and, apparently Beaulieu). The scary voiceover lady mentions some Rush-matic semiautomatic, while some special effects provide for the car appearing to drive by itself!
• [3] The same commercial for the Brazilian market for Portuguese speakers :D Moderno automovil! Frenos super potentes!
• The French "Gazoline" magazine of course featured the Vedette numerous times - perhaps somebody is a subscriber?

Regards, Bravada, talk - 01:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Vedette years

Vedette 1955

Here are the characteristics of the Simca Vedette in 1955. Sorry it is in French.

• MOTEUR - 8 cylindres en V. Cylindrée : 2351 cm³. Alésage, course : 66,1 X 85,7 mm.
  

Puissance fiscale : 13 CV. Puissance réelle : 80 ch à 4400 tr/mn, Compres-
sion : 7,2. Soupapes latérales commandées par un arbre à cames central. Vilebrequin à
3 paliers. Alimentation par un carburateur double corps Zénith type 32 NDIX ; réservoir
à essence de 60 litres. Refroidissement par eau ; circuit de 17 litres. Equipement électri-
que : 6 volts, 90 ampères.

• TRANSMISSION - Classique aux roues arrières. Embrayage monodisque sec. Boîte 3 vi-
  

tesses (2e et 3e synchronisées) avec levier de commande sous le volant.

• FREINS - A commande hydraulique, avec tambours AV/AR
• SUSPENSION - AV à roues indépendantes du type Mac Pherson, avec ressorts hélicoï-
  

daux placés très haut et amortisseurs incorporés ; AR à essieu rigide, avec ressorts à
lames longitudinaux.

• DIRECTION - Gemmer à vis et galet. PNEUS 6.40 X 13
  
• DIMENSIONS - Empattement : 269 cm. Voies AV / AR : 137/134 cm. Longueur : 452 cm.
  

Largeur : 175 cm. Hauteur : 148 cm.

• POIDS - A vide en ordre de marche : 1150 kg. VITESSE - 140 km/h.
  
• PRIX - En novembre 1954 : Trianon 798 000 F ; Versailles 898 000 F ; Régen-
  

ce 1 045 000 F

The Marly is not sold before the end of the 1955 model year. A transparent opening roof called Vistadome is offered on all sedans.

Vedette 1956

In 1956, the Vedette is modified: new licence plate attachment to the bumper on the front, the rear licence plate is articulated and hides the gas tank filling. The dashboard gets a second partial odometer and a foot/pedal commanded windscreen water jet. The Versaille gets a central arm rest atthe back, and the Régence gets one at the front. The Trianon is simplified, it loses the vertical bumper elements, the chrome decor of the windscreen disappears. The Marly is in oproduction and starts to be sold in January 1956.

Trianon 790 000 F Versailles 889 000 F Régence 1 035 000 F Marly 1 150 000 F. Suplement for Vistadome roof 44 500 F.Hektor 16:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the great info! Am I to understand that it's all from the book you have? I have seen you tried to create a reference for it, I will do that in a moment. I am wondering whether we will be able to have absolutely all the details in the article, we'll see... Is the Vistadome a moonroof or something more complex, like the Ford Crown Victoria Skyliner, which had the whole front part of the roof made of transparent plexiglass? Bravada, talk - 18:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Vedette 1957

In 1957, new logo on the front, the chrome decor of the windscreen is back on the Trianon, thinner rear lights on Versailles, Régence and Marly, V8 logos on the side on Régence and Marly, better interior trim on Régence/ Mechanically, less demultiplicated direction, better brakes, and optional automatic clutch Gravina. Equipment switch from 6 to 12 volts. 45 A battery.

• Trianon 799 000 F
• Versailles 899 000 F
• Régence 1 049 000 F (with Vistadome 1 093 000 F)
• Marly 1 150 000 F

Vedette 1958

Here are the characteristics of the Simca Vedette in 1958. The engine is the Aquilon 84 with 4 more hp. Sorry it is in French.

• MOTEUR - 8 cylindres en V. Cylindrée : 2351 cm³. Alésage, course : 66,1 X 85,7 mm.
  

Puissance fiscale : 13 CV. Puissance réelle : 84 ch à 4400 tr/mn, Compres-
sion : 7,5. Soupapes latérales commandées par un arbre à cames central. Vilebrequin à
3 paliers. Alimentation par un carburateur double corps Zénith type 32 NDIX ; réservoir
à essence de 60 litres. Refroidissement par eau ; circuit de 17 litres. Equipement électri-
que : 12 volts, 45 ampères.

• TRANSMISSION - Classique aux roues arrières. Embrayage monodisque sec. Boîte 3 vi-
  

tesses (2e et 3e synchronisées) avec levier de commande sous le volant.

• FREINS - A commande hydraulique, avec tambours AV/AR
• SUSPENSION - AV à roues indépendantes du type Mac Pherson, avec ressorts hélicoï-
  

daux placés très haut et amortisseurs incorporés ; AR à essieu rigide, avec ressorts à
lames longitudinaux.

• DIRECTION - Gemmer à vis et galet. PNEUS 6.15 X 15 or 165 X 380
  
• DIMENSIONS - Empattement : 269 cm. Voies AV / AR : 137/134 cm. Longueur : 475 cm.
  

Largeur : 177 cm. Hauteur : 148 cm.

• POIDS - A vide en ordre de marche : 1260 kg. VITESSE - 143 km/h.
  
• PRIX - En novembre 1954 : Beaulieu 995 000 F ; Chambord 1 140 000 F
  

Marly 1 208 000F
The Trianon is indeed replaced by the Ariane 8.

Vedette 1959

New option Rush-Matic for automatic gear box. Two position: Rush (fully automatic) and Road (manual control)
Chapron makes a special convertible Presidence with two doors for an Overseas Governor.
Chambord: 1 174 850 F Présidence 1 624 000 F.

Vedette 1960

No change.
Beaulieu 1 109 100 F Chambord 1 246 100 F Marly 1 392 300 F Présidence only available on special order.
4 door convertible presidence for Charles de Gaulle.

Vedette 1961

More comfortable seats (with foam) new anti vibration crankshaft. Chrome decor straight from front to rear lights
Beaulieu deleted in autumn 1960
End of all three remaining Vedette in Summer 1961

Questions to be answered

I would like to start a list of issues that it would be good to determine, finding source answering those questions:

• Was the Vedette's body, both in the first and in the second generation, designed and styled by Ford or by Simca? Did Ford have a styling/design studio in France that Simca took over, or did the design come from Dearborn?
  • Bellu says entirely Ford design. Designed in Detroit but prepared in Poissy , for what it meansHektor 18:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• Was the Esplanade sold in Brazil as a Chrysler explicitly?
• Was the engine in the first Vedette identical to the one in the previous Ford Vedette, or were there any changes? Were they done by Simca or by Ford?
• I've read that Ford had a 25% share in Simca after the transaction, which they sold in 1958 to Chrysler - did Chrysler influence the design or other aspects of the Vedette in any way?
  • Originally 15% and then increased to 25% according to Bellu.Hektor 18:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Now it gets even more interesting - so Ford invested in Simca only to sell it all to Chrysler 4 years later? Was the Vedette distribution handled by Ford dealers or by Simca, or by both, or were the distribution networks merged in some way? Bravada, talk - 18:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
      • AFAIK, everything was merged under Vedette Simca. Even the two remaining Ford cars, the Abeille commerciale (the old Ford Vedette utilitarian ) and the Comète Monte-Carlo were sold under Simca...Hektor 18:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• To put the prices in perspective, we could use some data on prices of similar cars in France in the same period.
  • I can probably find Citroën DS and Peugeot 403 somewhere.Hektor 18:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Another important thing

Oh wow, we're on the front page - much sooner than I expected! Let's hope this will bring some more editors in! I will try to include the information Hektor added above in a moment, but I still have the all-important question, IS THIS FROM BELLU'S BOOK?. I know this is stupid, but I really wouldn't want to misreference that.

• Yes it is including the three scans. I don't know about the copyright status of these, seems very unclear to me,Hektor 16:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, those look like Simca promotional photos, so unless the French copyright law stipulates that the copyright has expired, it should still belong to PSA or Chrysler (depending how they sorted out this issue). If not, they are Mr. Bellu's, or whoever granted him the right to use them.
    That said, they are nice, but not only we cannot use them in the article, but I think we might find newer, higher-quality colour photographs of the Vedettes. As before, I have to turn to you again to ask you to find some time to write to some owners' associations and owners themselves - unfortunately, there aren't many Vedette's I've heard of in English-speaking countries, and I still haven't learned much French :( I hope another user from Brazil which I invited to participate in editing this article will help us with Brazilian Vedettes and derivatives, while I will try to dig out any Vedette that I could find in English-speaking areas... Given the (mostly lack of) reply to the massive effort concerning the Tagora, I guess we need quite a massive action here.... Bravada, talk - 16:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Another important thing is whether we should describe the Ariane and the Latin American relatives to the Vedette, including the Esplanada (can you think of a classier name for a large car?) here or in separate articles? Bravada, talk - 12:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well that's a strange question from the creator of the Eurovan article ;) Hektor 16:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, those models aren't EXACTLY identical and have a different history from the Vedette, quite unlike Eurovans, where not much can be said about each model that cannot be said about the other... I'll think about it because some mischevious idea occured to me :D Bravada, talk - 16:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

As Ford ?

I have another question after having read a lot about the car, thanks to you, this last day, is that I haven't found any convincing proof that any Vedette 55 was ever sold as a Ford. I think the first deliveries were already with a Simca Vedette badge.Hektor 17:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

If Bellu says so, we have no reason not to believe him. I think the first place where I got that thing from was Phil Seed's Museum. As Phil often features brochures from other countries, like the Netherlands, it could be that it was offered as Ford in other countries for some time. Another good reason to email Simca enthusiasts and clubs :D Perhaps you might also ask fellow French Wikipedians, maybe they have other books on Simcas that clear that issue, or subscribe to Gazoline.

I believe what we need is a good general Simca article so that individual articles would not contradict each other and could reference to it. I think this whole issue should be discussed there in detail, I only stuffed it there because it is usually discussed by teh sources that mention the Vedette... BTW, I have started the Simca 1000 article, which is now a pile of rubbish. If somebody could expand it, it would be great (there are some sources linked already, one just needs to browse them carefully). And we need a GOOD photo of the Simca too - there were 2 millions made, it shouldn't be THAT hard to get some... Bravada, talk - 17:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

french version

Are the two links to the french version necessary? Rmpfu89 22:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't know whether they are necessary, but there are actually TWO articles in the French Wikipedia that deal with that, one for each Vedette "generation" (and there is no "general" article that would deal with that). I followed the example of Volvo 700 series, which links to all Swedish Wikipedia articles dealing with individual models from the series. Bravada, talk - 22:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

PS. And why don't you join in and help expand this and other Simca articles!

Simca Ariane - help needed

As you might have seen, I have also created a stub on the Ariane. I have nominated this interesting model (along with the nice photo sourced from the French Wikipédie :D ) for DYK, but I guess the nomination might perish on the grounds that it is a stub. I have basically copied all the info on the Ariane I could find from the online sources used for this article, but if anybody could add to that, I would be most grateful. We basically need just one mor paragraph and I think it won't be a stub anymore :D Merci, Bravada, talk - 19:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

All the pieces begin to fit...

Today I went on to do some research on the Ford Vedette and finally sorted out the "Simca Vedette as Ford" controversy, as well as learned some other interesting facts - see Ford Vedette for details! The article is still quite undeveloped - e.g. I am almost sure the saloon version (with an extended boot) replaced the fastback in 1952, but I can't find a reference stating that directly. I have two sources that might be very informative, but one is in French and the other in Portuguese - so I invite those of you for whom these are native languages to check them out :D Bravada, talk - 19:34, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Come discuss Simca stuff!

Dear All,

I would like to cordially invite you to come and discuss all general Simca-related Wikipedia issues on talk:Simca. There is one quite urgent issue to be acquainted with currently there. Regards, Bravada, talk - 05:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

GA

It hasn't been noted but this was nominated to be a good article - and I think it is worth approving. Well sourced and written. Although you might consider turning some of those redlinks into blue (with articles or just stubs). In fact if you did that this could easily be a FA --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 14:04, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations and thanks to everybody involved! Even though I was actually the nominator, I believe that this promotion is a bit "in advance", as there are still some things that could be improved about the article. I hope this will be a good motivator for us to work together on fixing them :D

1. Could somebody please check the quality of my "translation" of the French info provided by Hektor on this talk page? I am not that familiar with technical terminology, and my French is less than rudimentary.
2. Most of the paragraphs were expanded by me in attempt to contain all the information rather than provide a good reading experience, so it would be good if a proficient copyeditor could give them a good brush-up
3. We really need to expand this article with information on the Brazilian Vedettes
4. It should be possible to obtain better free pics from enthusiasts. Unfortunately, those are probably to be found in France and Brazil mostly, so French and Portuguese speakers could help here...
5. Some questions I put above are still unanswered, and there are still a few that occurred to me:
   1. I read somewhere that the Presidence was actually made a bit different than the Vedette (more like coachbuilt/handmade), and the final assembly/finishing took place somewhere else than Poissy.
   2. Was the Abeille sold as Simca until Marly was launched? Were they similarly priced? And how was the price of the Simca Vedette in relation with the Ford Vedette?
   3. There is no price for Beaulieu for 1959 - was it cancelled for that year or is the price unavailable?
   4. Were the Netherlands and Germany the sole countries where the Vedette was sold as Ford, and was it really until 1956 only, or perhaps until the generation change? Were they sold by Simca/Chrysler dealers later on? The Ford Vedette was apparently assembled in Amsterdam by a local Ford subsidiary - was the Simca too?

Thanks everybody for your help! Let's try to make it an FA! Bravada, talk - 20:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I went through and made some minor copyediting changes, and noticed a couple of contradictions. In the first paragraph, the car was "initially still marketed as the Ford Vedette." Cut out initially and the sentence doesn't make any sense to me, and it doesn't make sense to me as it is now, but I wasn't sure enough that it should just read "initially" to make the change. Also, in the last paragraph, "Production of the Vedette ended in the Summer of 1961...although it continued later in Brazil." Did it end then or not? Did it end then specifically for the European market and continue elsewhere? Someone who knows the subject can probably do something with these more than I can. IFCAR 21:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for copyediting! (see main article page history for my small doubt about one phrase) Your concerns are fully legitimate, this all stems from the fact that this article is still in statu nascendi. I have nominated it to see how easy an article can become a GA, to have some evidence for furtehr reference), but I guess it would be better to improve the article quickly rather than strip it of the GA status :D The summary section needs to be totally rewritten, and I would rather some native speaker with good command of "encyclopedic English" did that than me. You are absolutely right that the production ended in 1961 in Poissy, it continued in Brazil of course. The Ford Vedette issue is explained in the article in more detail, it is just an artefact of an older version which was based on less detailed info. Bravada, talk - 21:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. The double-an must have come in when I put multiple versions of the same sentence or phrase next to each other for comparison, and didn't combine the winner properly with the existing text. Oops. I'd also like the leave any major rewrites to someone else, someone who had heard of the car in question before today. I'm fine with rearranging a few words here and there, but someone else would probably have a better idea of what's important for the summary.

Incidentally, I also made a curiousity GA nominee recently (the Saturn Aura article) just to get a basic idea for what the standards were. IFCAR 22:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Simca Chambord Tufão and other Brazilian made models

Hiya all, I'm new to Wikipedia as a contributor. I including today a post about the Simca Chambord (Brazilian model) and got other things coming up, too. For example about the Esplanada.

I was wondering how the structure works. Will my contribution be automatically included to the existing Simca Vedete file?

Anyone got sugestion for the rookie here...? =)

Ford Vedette suspension?

There's a question as to the suspension of the 1949 Ford Vedette.

There is broad agreement that the Vedette became an early car to use MacPherson struts. At least by 1954 (by which time it was Simca building them, not Ford) it used struts. Also in 1950 the Ford Consul was using struts.

The question is, did the 1949 Ford Vedette use struts from the outset, or did it use a different suspension system (unequal length wishbones have been suggested, presumably with lever shocks? Was the bodyshell then redesigned for struts when it went to Simca?

(Posted at all three of the relevant talk pages, but please reply at Talk:MacPherson strut#Ford Vedette suspension?)

Andy Dingley (talk) 13:06, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

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Brazilian content merged here

On December 29, 2023, as per partial merger attempts by User:Redirect cleanup editor I merged the content from Simca Chambord (Brazilian model), Simca Alvorada, and Simca Profissional here. Duplicate content was removed. See previous deletions by Redirect cleanup editor here and here, followed by Sable232's merger suggestion.  Mr.choppers | ✎  22:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)