60 years of Matra magnificence | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

Having attended the Press Day of every Paris Salon since 1982, this year important prior commitments prevented me from attending the one-day media preview, and having come away somewhat underwhelmed by the last event in 2022 I uncharacteristically thought I’d give this year a miss and watch the highlights on local French TV instead.

Although still not as well supported by most of the vehicle manufacturers as Paris Salons of old, from the television coverage the show looked to be an improvement on the weak post-pandemic 2022 effort. The revived Renault R4 and Twingo EVs aroused interest and I was intrigued to see the new Alpine A290 fastback preview prototype in the metal, as I was the 2CV-inspired Citroen Ami facelift, plus DS Automobile’s contemporary take on the masterful Citroen SM.

So, almost by way of a poor justification of detouring via Paris, perhaps a flying visit into the exhibition halls at the Salon could be worth the detour. A quick dash into the event to quickly look at the main new attractions, and then get back on the road again north towards Calais.

This plan didn’t quite work out, though, as what the various show previews and reports I’d seen hadn’t mentioned was that, as well as the shiny new models on display, the Salon was hosting a special homage to celebrate the 60^th anniversary since France’s most successful post-war motor racing operation and innovative specialist production car marque was founded: Matra.

Matra is one of my preferred automotive marques, having owned a number of its mid-engined sports cars since 1984 and being an early member of the British Matra Enthusiasts Club (MEC) ever since. My first Matra was a three-seater 1980 Murena which I used as my everyday car for some years.

This was soon joined by a 1972 Matra M530 and a gawky Ford Taunus V4-powered 2+2 targa that was far nicer to drive than it was to look at. My ultimate example of the marque is a 1965 Matra-Bonnet Djet, which I first restored over 30 years ago and now need to restore again as the Djet is a keeper and quite rare as usually one of only four examples in the UK at any one time.

As soon as I got into Matras in the early 1980s, I joined the MEC and lusted after a Djet, but trying to find one for sale pre-internet took an age and in my frustration waiting to track one down I owned a couple of Alpine-Renault A110 Berlinettes, which shared the same Renault 8-derived power unit as the Djet, but sadly the engine was situated in the wrong place for me  – the rear!

Despite the Djet being historically far more significant than the Alpine as the very first mid-engined production car, a class winner at Le Mans and dynamically superior to the A110 Berlinette in every way, as the thinking man’s Alpine, the Djet is undeservedly unknown in comparison to the cult-like Berlinette, so unfairly doesn’t enjoy the same adulation (or value, despite being far scarcer).

In October 1964, the Engins Matra Group added a new line of hi-tech automotive production activities to supplement its range of rocket launchers, anti-submarine weapons and satellites. At that year’s Paris Salon, Engins Matra launched its automotive division by taking over the sports and competition car interests of the capable but financially insecure Automobiles Rene Bonnet.

With a large, bright and confident exhibition stand, the new Matra-Bonnet company presented its revised version of the Rene Bonnet Djet – the world’s first production mid-engined sports car – and announced its very ambitious plans to return France and French Racing Blue to motorsport podiums once again.

Within five years of its formation, Matra-Bonnet had achieved its lofty ambition. It quickly became a major force in Formula 2, F3 and endurance racing, and in April 1967 the now renamed Matra-Sports Group received a grant of 6million francs from the French Government to develop a winning Formula 1 car. 

With additional financial support from the French national oil company Elf, plus the racing expertise of the Englishman Ken Tyrrell and his team, Matra made its grand prix debut in May 1968 using the proven Ford Cosworth DFV motor in its new MS10. Its first victory came at the Dutch Grand Prix in June with Jackie Stewart taking the chequered flag and team-mate Jean-Pierre Beltoise placed second.

By 1969, Matra was victorious in six of that season’s 11 grands prix, with Stewart usually spraying the champagne. He was crowned drivers’ champion in 1969 with Matra also taking the constructors’ title, only five years after it had taken over the small Rene Bonnet operation.   

Matra went on to introduce its own in-house V12 F1 engine in 1970, which sounded gloriously painful but was somewhat underpowered. When installed into the centre of one of its svelte MS630 endurance racers, though, the Matra V12 gave the-now 100 per cent French team a hat trick of victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the first coming in 1972 and the last two years later, when Matra withdrew from motor racing. Having won both the F1 world championship and Le Mans three times in succession, beating the likes of Ferrari and Porsche, it had nothing left to prove.

Post its competition era, Matra continued with specialist mid-engined fibre-glass sportscar construction, having partnered with Chrysler’s French subsidiary Simca in 1969 to give the marque much broader dealer network representation. Initially, this was slightly awkward as the contemporary M530 model used a V4 engine from Chrysler’s big domestic rival Ford, but this problem was resolved at Le Mans in 1973 when Matra introduced its higher-volume three-seater Bagheera, powered by a mid-mounted Simca motor.

Named after a black panther character in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the Bagheera’s initial 1.3-litre Simca unit proved too anaemic to match the model’s fine dynamics and sporting style, though the later addition of a 1.6-litre engine for the improved Series 2 models helped satisfy the strong demand for more power.

The stylish Murena of late 1980 replaced the Bagheera, and resolved the lack of power by using a 2.2-litre Talbot Tagora engine, with Matra now forming part of Peugeot’s 1978 takeover of the failed Chrysler’s European operations, which it renamed Talbot.

Like its Bagheera predecessor, the Murena retained the unusual three-abreast seating arrangement and GRP bodywork. Destined for a bright career, sadly the Murena’s life was unfairly cut short when Renault acquired Matra’s automotive division in 1984 to produce the innovative one-box Espace MPV, a brand-new passenger car concept that Peugeot had rejected as the replacement for the pioneering Matra Rancho of 1976.

With Renault now at the helm, the Matra Murena was seen as a more affordable in-house rival to the Alpine-Renault A310, so it was unceremoniously dropped. The Matra conceived and built Renault Espace proved to be a huge success, spawning a host of MPV imitators and led to Renault eventually bringing production of the fourth-generation metal-bodied Espace in-house, pulling the plug prematurely on the unique Matra-made Avantime MPV coupé and thus ending all passenger car production at Matra in the process.

Despite developing a number of far-sighted concept cars over the years, the ownership of Automobiles Matra frequently changed hands over the subsequent years, it briefly forming part of Pininfarina for its fibre-glass composite expertise, but currently Matra is reduced to making a range of branded capable but costly electric bicycles.

There are growing rumours of a comeback for the marque however, possibly spurred on by the successful reintroduction of the Alpine brand. IDEC.Sport, based at the Paul Ricard circuit near Nice, revived the distinctive Racing Blue livery of Matra’s 1974 Le Mans winner with its own endurance racer at this year’s 24 Hours race. Whispers also abound of a revival of the Matra Djet, which I for one am very excited about.

Until then, though, the special 60^th anniversary display arranged by the Matra Museum at the 2024 Paris Salon definitely made my unscheduled detour very worthwhile indeed.

Lead image courtesy of Getty Images. 

Jackie Stewart image courtesty of Motorsport Images.