Simca 5

The Simca 5 is a smaw Franco-Italian passenger caur designed bi Fiat engineers at Turin an commercialised in Fraunce bi Simca. It wis virtually identical tae the Fiat 500 Topolino on which it wis based, but wis first presented, at the company's new Nanterre plant, three month ahead o the Fiat equivalent on 10 Mairch 1936. Production wis delayed, houiver, bi a wave o strikes that accompanied the Juin 1936 electoral victory o Léon Blum's Popular Front govrenment.

Advanced features boasted bi the Simca 5 included independent front suspension, a fower speed gear box, hydraulically controlled drum brakes on aw fower wheels an a twal volt electrical seestem.

The caur an aa offered exceptional fuel economy: in a test it managed tae traivel 110 kilometers on juist 5 litres o fuel.

The caur wis intendit for sale on the domestic mercat for less nor 10,000 French Francs, an aspiration that wad be overtaken bi a decline in the currency's value that gathered pace in the seicont hauf o the 1930s. The manufacturer boasted at the time o its launch o bein ahead o the plans across the Rhine: this wis a reference tae the already rumoured launch o the Volkswagen Beetle which wad appear anerlie in 1938.

Production o the Simca 5 wis slowed doun (but did nae ever cease entirely) bi the war an the period o German occupation in the early 1940s, but resumed in 1946. 46,472 o the caurs haed been produced bi the time the caur wis delisted bi Simca in 1949. Bi nou it haed been replaced on the company's production lines bi the seemilar but partially reskinned an slichtly mair pouerful Simca 6.

• This entry is based on a translation o the French Wikipedia corresponding entry