The Simca Vedette and China.

In 1954 Simca bought Ford France, the factory and her products. Ford produced since a couple of months a new Vedette and this car became the Simca Vedette. This car was very important for China, as it was the example for China’s officially first motor car, the Dongfeng CA71.

The story is that general De Gaulle gave the Simca to Prime minister Zhou Enlai,  a story I doubt as De Gaulle was not in power in 1958 or the year before.

The Simca was used as a base for the Dongfeng body and platform. The engine of the Dongfeng was based on a Mercedes-Benz engine.

I decided to do a search to find the original Simca Vedette which was used as the example for the Dongfeng. At least there must be some information about this car.  FAW distributed a photo showing a test drive with the Dongfeng (2*42406) and the Simca.

I visited the FAW stock of old cars in a parking garage in 2006, the so-called ‘warehouse’, but I was only allowed to see one floor, and there were more floors. No Simca at this floor.

Chinese handbooks show some Simca Vedette’s, and recently family photos appear at social media. Surprisingly, as I never found photos of a Simca Aronde, Simca P60 or Simca 1000. The Vedette seems well sold to China.

I found a Simca, standing besides a Jiefang CA11 prototype. This could be the FAW Simca?

And here the most important discovery:

Registration 1*04954. Haven’t we seen that registration before??

The Dongfeng clay model!! Described here.

BINGO! This is definitely the car we were looking for: the Simca Vedette  that served as the example for the design of the Dongfeng CA71.

When the car is still existing, it will be for certain in the ‘warehouse’. I will do my best to find out.