Monica 560
| Monica | |
|---|---|
 Monica 560 from 1973
|
|
| 560 | |
| Production period: | 1973-1974 |
| Class : | Upper class |
| Body versions : | limousine |
| Engines: |
Petrol engines : 5.6 liters (209 kW) |
| Length: | 4955 mm |
| Width: | 1820 mm |
| Height: | 1330 mm |
| Wheelbase : | 2770 mm |
| Empty weight : | 1850 kg |
The Monica 560 was a French sports car that was produced in a few copies between 1967 and 1975. The car is a decidedly exotic species, around which there are numerous myths.
The project
The initiator of the project was the French industrialist Jean Tastevin, who was the director or - according to other sources - the owner of the company Compagnie Française de Matériel Ferroviaire (CFMF), a company from Balbigny that successfully manufactured railroad cars. After meeting the British engine tuner and racing driver Chris Lawrence , Tastevin came up with the idea of entering the automotive business with his own vehicle in 1967. Lawrence was initially only supposed to develop the engine; a little later he was able to get Tastevin to hand over the development of the entire car to him.
The concept of the vehicle as well as its styling have undergone numerous changes in the course of its development. Tastevin originally thought of a small, compact sports car with a British engine, similar to the one Ligier realized with his JS2 model from 1970 . Lawrence's work went in the direction of a large, heavy sports sedan at an early stage , which made the use of a powerful unit necessary. Tastevin ultimately shared this idea; some British sources report that he now saw his car in the tradition of the recently failed Facel Vega brand .
The prototypes
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In 1968 a first prototype was created , which was manufactured in Lawrence's company Lawrencetune . Initially, the engine was a four-cylinder from the Triumph TR4 , tuned by Lawrence ; however, the engine turned out to be unsuitable. The design was unspectacular; the few available pictures show an inharmonious, hardly sensational body . Tastevin was not convinced of this and commissioned a new design.
A second, similarly designed car was produced by Williams & Pritchard in London , and a third prototype was produced by Vignale in Turin . In these models, the bonnet was already sloping - as in the later series models; However, the fenders were lifted out and carried square headlights from the Panhard CD . The car had wide, two-piece bumpers that were chrome-plated and framed a small, roughly barred grille in the style of the Jaguar E-Type .
A number of other prototypes were created between 1969 and 1972, some of which differed considerably from one another. Tastevin attached great importance to a sporty, attractive body. The French Robert Collinée and the Romanian Tony Rascanu were hired for their design. They designed - in several intermediate steps - a stretched, four-door body with a hatchback and sloping front section.
From 1968 onwards, instead of the Triumph engine, a specially developed unit was provided as the drive . On Lawrence's initiative, Tastevin commissioned the British engineer Ted Martin to develop an eight-cylinder . The engine initially had a displacement of 3.0 liters. It was derived from a racing engine and soon proved to be unreliable and uncultivated; moreover, it could not be combined with an automatic transmission. Some prototypes were tested with this engine in the years 1970 to 1972 without being able to solve any problems with the engine. When the lack of reliability became apparent, Martin increased the displacement to 3.4 liters in 1972. This version was also tested in some prototypes.
The car equipped with the enlarged Martin eight-cylinder was first shown publicly as the Monica 340 at the end of 1972 at the Paris Motor Show . The body of the light blue painted vehicle largely corresponded to the later production model, but ultimately the vehicle did not go into production with the Martin eight-cylinder. Because in the last test drives, the engine proved to be uncultivated, even with the larger displacement, and not appropriate to the demands of the car. In the winter of 1972/1973, Tastevin gave up his own engine project and looked for another drive source. Initially, an attempt was made to purchase Rolls-Royce engines; however, this idea failed early on on the British side. Ultimately, Tastevin chose the engine that many potential competitors were using and that - in different stages of development - had proven to be reliable over many years: an American eight-cylinder from Chrysler .
Between 1967 and 1973 a total of 25 prototypes were made, two of them with Chrysler engines.
The production model
The production model was presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1973 as the "Monica 560". The name of the car was derived from the name of Tastevin's wife, Monique, and the number indicates the displacement of the engine.
The body of the production model showed many different elements that did not always harmonize well with each other. It was a four-door sedan with a sloping front section with pop-up headlights installed and a long hatchback . The front section resembled the Maserati Indy and the Lotus Elan +2 (Type 50) from different perspectives and did not have a conspicuous radiator grille. The course of the roofline copied the Aston Martin DBS , and the design of the rear door frames borrowed from the Jaguar Mark II (and its large offshoots S-Type and 420 ). The belt line was slightly curved like the American Coke Bottle line .
Technically, the Monica 560 was up to date. In addition to the solid Chrysler engine with a displacement of 5.6 liters and allegedly 285 hp, the car had a De-Dion axle , four disc brakes from Lockheed and Girling, as well as automatic level control and a lattice frame . Either a manual five-speed transmission from ZF or a Torqueflite automatic from Chrysler served as power transmission . The interior was lined with leather and the dashboard was paneled with wood. A special idea were recessed door handles, which unfolded electrically when touched and were then usable. A sales brochure from 1974 stated the maximum speed of the car at 240 km / h, the standing kilometer the car should cover in 27.5 seconds.
The start of production and early failure
The Monica was produced in Balbigny in the CFPM halls. Tastevin had initially tried to have the body made by Jensen in Great Britain . However, given the very different financial ideas and Jensen's economic difficulties, the negotiations were broken off without any results. In the end, Tastevin had to procure the necessary pressing tools himself.
Production in Balbigny was slow to start. In fact, sales could not begin until early 1974. By 1975, fewer than ten "series" models of the Monica had been made that differed in detail. The purchase price was quoted at £ 14,000 , a value that placed the Monica in the region of a Lamborghini Espada . Most sources today assume that a total of eight vehicles were manufactured in Balbigny for sale before Tastevin ceased production of the Monica in early 1975.
There were many reasons for the failure of the Monica project. The car was very expensive without offering the image necessary in these price regions . In a world defined by Ferrari , Maserati or Aston Martin , the name Monica was simply unknown and had no charisma. In addition, the car was presented at the time of the oil crisis , when interest in heavy, expensive and high-consumption sports cars waned. At a time when established brands like Jensen and Iso Rivolta had to give up, there was hardly any space for a new, unknown luxury brand.
Jean Tastevin survived his foray into the automotive world unscathed. His thriving company, CFPM, absorbed the losses. Incidentally, he managed to earn some more money by selling the project.
Attempt at resuscitation
Shortly after the Monica project ended, the British company Panther Westwinds took over the production rights and also the tools from CFPM. The founder of the replica manufacturer, Robert Jankel, tried in early 1976 to resume production of the Monica in Great Britain; a British source said it was in the process of an equipment of the car with a twelve-cylinder - V engine from Jaguar been thought. In the end nothing came of that. As far as is known, Panther did not manufacture a single copy of the Monica.
Monica today
Six Monica are known today; the location of five cars is known: two cars are in Great Britain, one in Germany , one in the Netherlands and one in Los Angeles . The cars are particularly well known in Great Britain; Reports about the Monica keep appearing in British publications.
A German collector presented his blue vehicle in 2010 at the Concours d'Elegance at Schloss Bensberg .
A red vehicle with the British registration number 999 KUM took part in the 2015 Baiersbronn Classic . This vehicle sold for £ 55,000 in 2011 . Auto Bild Klassik carried out a comparison test with this vehicle in 2019 and reported on it in one of its editions.
On November 7, 2015, the French auction house Aguttes auctioned a blue Monica from 1975 for 120,000 euros .
Competitors
- Citroën SM Opera, a four-door sedan based on the Citroën SM, produced by Chapron in a few copies.
- De Tomaso Deauville
- Iso Fidia
- Aston Martin Lagonda Series 1, an elongated four-door version of the Aston Martin V8 , of which seven were produced
- Maserati Quattroporte
- Monteverdi High Speed 375/4
- Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and Bentley T1
gallery
diagonally from behind
Rear
Lettering on the rear
Lettering in the door cutout
literature
- Kevin Brazendale: The Encyclopedia of classic cars . Advanced Marketing Services, London 1999, ISBN 1-57145-182-X (English).
- Martin Buckley: A rare beauty . In: The Independent , May 31, 2005.
- Bodo Möhrke: Panther Cars - from J72 to the new Kallista , Dortmund 1994.
- auto catalog No. 18 (1974/75), p. 92.
Web links
- Spiegel Online : Monica 560. For the Glory of the Republic , Tom Grünweg, August 13, 2010.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Monica 560: For the Glory of the Republic . In: Spiegel Online , August 13, 2010. Accessed December 6, 2015.
- ↑ Baiersbronn Classic 2015 (start number 118) ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved December 6, 2015.
- ^ Auction 2011 (English). Retrieved December 6, 2015.
- ↑ Martin Puthz: Help, we have a luxury problem! In: Auto Bild Klassik , issue 10/2019, pp. 10–29.
- ↑ Auction 2015 (English and French, accessed September 24, 2016)
