From: Dale C. Cook
>All this talk about old Rootes Group cars has got me wondering.
>I too almost bought a Sunbeam as my first "sports" car, but I
>got sold instead a French car (horrors!) It was a Simca (Ociane?)
>It had a hand-made (Facilia) body, reclining seats and a really
>gutless engine. Mine was black (Fleur Noir) and very pretty.
>Also more unreliable than anything British, if you can believe
>that. I really enjoyed it as my Stanford car and used it to
>get to and fro between L.A., where I lived, and Palo Alto,
>where I *lived*! :-) Does anyone on the list remember this
>car? There can't have been many imported.
Actually the Simca was orders of magnitude more reliable than one
another French import of that period. I refer, of course, to the
Renault Dauphin (spell ?). This particular gem convinced me forever
that under no circumstance would I ever own a French car. Fortunately
is was a friend and not me who suffered putting up with this junk heap.
No doubt this is an unfair attitude to have relative to current French
cars but I have a long memory.
Someone commented that they thought the Singer was a drophead and not a
roadster. I believe that's correct. I tend to lump anything with side
curtains into the roaster category. And yes, it did resemble a Sunbeam
Talbot. More so than a MG TD. BTW, my TD was a drophead too. I loved
the way the top attached to the car. Carpet tacks. How else?
Roland Dudley
cobra@hpcilan.hp.com
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