Simca Etoile 6: white copy from 1960
The Simca Aronde is an automobile which was manufactured by the French automaker Simca from 1951 to 1964. It was Simca’s first original design (earlier models were all to a greater or lesser extent based on Fiats), as well as the company’s first unibody car. “Aronde” means “swallow” in Old French and it was chosen as the name for the model because Simca’s logo at that time was a stylized swallow.
There were three generations of the model: the 9 Aronde, made from 1951 to 1955, the 90A Aronde, made from 1955 to 1958, and the Aronde P60, which debuted in 1958 and continued until the model was dropped in 1964. Some 1.4 million Arondes were made in total, and this model alone is largely responsible for Simca becoming the second-biggest French automaker at the end of the 1950s.
The P60 Aronde saloons, presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1958, came with a new modern-looking body. The 2,440 mm (96.1 in) wheelbase was unchanged and, apart from a slightly lowered roof-line, the central portion of the body was still broadly similar to that of the original 1951 Aronde, but the discrete tail-fins and rear lights were restyled as were the headlights, set on either side of a larger grill at the front.
Mechanically little had changed: more innovative was the wide range of versions and permutations now offered, with customers able to choose from a range of engines offering four different levels of power output (40, 45, 47 or 57 hp) and an options list that even included leather upholstery and a “Simcamatic” clutch.
