Talbots

BrianD3 · 07-02-2007 3:26pm #1

I was just reading up on the whole Chrysler/Talbot saga of the 70s and 80s. And what a bizarre, messy, confusing story it is. Badge engineering, the death of the Talbot brand, changes of ownership, bad management, strange marketing etc. Simca, Talbot, Chrysler, Hillman, Matra, Peugeot brands were all caught up in this shambolic mess. By all accounts some pretty bad cars were produced too!

Some of the cars produced during this era
-Chrysler/Talbot Alpine
-Talbot Tagora
-Talbot Rancho
-Chrysler and Talbot Avengers and Hunters
-Talbot Solara
-Talbot Minx and Rapier (were these rebaged Solaras?)
-Talbot Samba
-Talbot Sunbeam

Anyone know of any survivors on Irish roads? If anyone wants to discuss Talbot history etc. that is welcome here too!

green-blood · 07-02-2007 3:57pm

my father had an Alpine, it was mega comfy but mega unreliable, it overheated a lot I seem to recall

It was gold and brown !!

BrianD3 · 07-02-2007 4:16pm

I have just been reading some more and the story is even more of a shambles than I imagined. Green-blood, it is no surprise that the Alpine was unreliable, it was lucky to even get produced in the first place! Here is detailed info on it

Alpine development
http://www.rootes-chrysler.co.uk/car-development/dev-alpine.html

The development of the 180, Tagora, Avenger and all the other models are also well worth reading up on for anyone with an interest in the motor industry. if you thought the demise of Rover was a messy situation it's nothing compared to this!

MercMad · 07-02-2007 5:04pm

i've never heard of a Talbot or Chrysler Hunter !

It was always an Hillman Hunter and then there were the Sunbeam Rapier and Hilmman Minx upmarket versions. The Rapier was a fastback version and completely different to earlier versions !

The Chrysler 180 saga was possibly a heavy nail in that coffin !

The engines used in those Alpines and Horizons was possibly the worst ever. "How to make a petrol engine sound and perform like a diesel.........but be as unreliable as a petrol "

BrianD3 · 07-02-2007 5:41pm

There wasn't a Talbot Hunter but there was a Chrysler one! You would remember it if you saw one - square headlights and a more prominent grille/chrome than the earlier Hillman version. According to that Rootes history website the Chryslers were manufactured in Ireland for a few years.

There was also a Humber Sceptre luxury version of the Hillman Hunter!

The Avenger initially a Hillman then a Chrysler and finally a Talbot. There was also a Plymouth Cricket version in the States.

cxcully · 07-02-2007 6:44pm

Unfortunately none around west Roscommon/east Mayo,north-east Galway or Ballinasloe Brian D3.And I have an inbuilt radar for sensing any strange car shapes either passing me on the roads or rotting in fields.I'd say the REPS and NCT massacred them.I'd check up on buyandsell.ie weekly for the past few years and can't recall any.There was a Tagora on ebay.co.uk a while back.Mint-an old Grandad's.

Blue850 · 08-02-2007 9:40am

I saw an 81 C registered Talbot Tagora at the Durrow show last year and a Hillman Hunter estate at Kilbroney.

MercMad · 08-02-2007 9:44am

You would remember it if you saw one - square headlights and a more prominent grille/chrome than the earlier Hillman version.

........yes now that you mention it I do remember it !

That engine in the Avenger was a great old lump, far better than the Alpine unit IMO !

BrianD3 · 08-02-2007 11:45am

mike65 has a pic of an 81 C Tagora in the here's what I saw today thread. Same one as the one you saw Blue850?

Blue850 · 08-02-2007 12:21pm

Must be the same one unless theres a guy in cork with a fetish for obscure French barges:)

cxcully · 08-02-2007 8:10pm

Maybe it's just the angle of the photo but that car honestly has great lines.

ds20prefecture · 08-02-2007 8:43pm

cxcully wrote:

Maybe it's just the angle of the photo but that car honestly has great lines.

Hang your head in shame cxcully. A man with a CX, a DS, and a GS admiring a pointy piece of excrement like this?

tut tut.

Max_Damage · 08-02-2007 9:45pm

Remember the Talbot Horizon? I saw one there about 3 or so years ago. Now they are a rare piece of machinery on the roads. They always reminded me of a hybrid of a Vauxhall Astra Mk1 and a Mazda 323 of similar vintage, or any other boxy heap of scrap for that matter!

cxcully · 09-02-2007 12:39am

ds20prefecture wrote:

Hang your head in shame cxcully. A man with a CX, a DS, and a GS admiring a pointy piece of excrement like this?

tut tut.

The Talbot is pointy I agree-the antithesis of a DS.ds20 old chap,I would see myself as an automotive descendent of the Decadent poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.....a man who surrounded himself with objects of beauty to such an extent that he needed to periodically self-flagellate in order to cleanse himself.....this is possibly the first time that these words have ever been in the same sentance as Talbot.

Silverfish · 09-02-2007 12:43am

I had a Talbot Samba.

It appeared to be some form of hybrid between a regular hatchback and a Sherman tank. Regardless of the weather, it would roar into life.

It sat unused at the end of the garden for a year or two, then when my other car broke down, I grabbed the keys for the Samba and ran down the garden - and it started up straight away.

On the way down from the garden, I missed the gap the cars fit through and scraped it off one of the cement blocks fringing the garden, and tore the exhaust off. It didn't make any difference to the sound of the engine

G Luxel · 09-02-2007 9:17pm

The Hunter had chrysler badging on the bonnet at the right hand side facing where the Hunter name had originally been placed. The last of them was assembled in this country in I979. Afterwards the car continued to be built in Iran until May 2005. Over 2 million were built. Today the pickup version is the only variant that remains in production.

-AS · 09-02-2007 10:21pm

A little while ago a guy from Limerick bought a beauty of a talbot sunbeam lotus
link to thread ( you might need to register first - its worth it though its a great site for all things retro, especially ford )
http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105090&highlight=talbot

unkel · 10-02-2007 1:32am

ds20prefecture wrote:

admiring a pointy piece of excrement like this?

I loved the styling of the Tagora when it first came out. It captured the fashion / styling of the time better than most cars. New wave kinda thing. It doesn't do much for me know though...

shagman · 10-02-2007 8:40pm

I saw a talbot alpine GLS today, disolving away out the back of the ecoshop near greystones.

ds20prefecture · 10-02-2007 11:50pm

unkel wrote:

I loved the styling of the Tagora when it first came out. It captured the fashion / styling of the time better than most cars. New wave kinda thing. It doesn't do much for me know though...

Ah come on - even ignoring my obvious Citroen bias, compare the Tagora to the Peugeot 604 or Renault 25. These were much more elegant, balanced designs with uniquely Gallic flavours compared to the generic Tagora.

pburns · 14-02-2007 10:43am

I learned to drive in a Chrysler Hunter. It was an old car at that stage - pretty much falling apart. It was a 1.7HS - a special edition run-out model AFAIK - vinyl roof, sports wheels etc. It also had 4 round headlights. It was much admired locally when it was new in the late '70s apparantly. God I hated that car. Anyone remember these? I'd love to see one again. We had a lateish Talbot Alpine as well.

@green blood: A neighbour of mine had a second (third?)-hand brown/gold Chrysler Alpine. Quite unusual - who knows it could have been your family's old car?

gaiscioch · 08-01-2019 12:34am

Informative thread. I came over here looking for info on what happened the Talbot. As I recall the 1980s Talbots were very common on Irish roads. At the time I used to think of them as being akin to the very common Renault 18. Wikipedia has this about their prevalence over in Britain:

In Britain, the Chrysler and Talbot marques had totalled nearly 120,000 sales in 1979, only outsold by Ford and British Leyland, but then went into decline, not helped by the recession or a lack of new models being launched. By 1985 however after years of losses, PSA Peugeot Citroën began to question its three-brand strategy. The Talbot Tagora model failed in the marketplace; the Samba was essentially a decade old design thanks to its Peugeot 104 parentage, whilst the ageing 1510/Alpine/Solara models overlapped with both the Citroën BX and forthcoming Peugeot 405. At the eleventh hour, the decision was made to release the forthcoming Horizon replacement as the Peugeot 309 instead of Talbot Arizona. It was a controversial decision, as the British arm of the company believed there was greater brand loyalty to Talbot in the UK with its historical connection to the Rootes Group, but the decision to concentrate on the Peugeot brand prevailed...

However, despite their being manufactured up until 1994, I have no seen a Talbot on Irish roads in decades now. According to the same Wikipedia article:

'According to the website How Many Left? as of June 2016, there were fewer than 40 Alpine/Solara models, 20 Horizons, 10 Sambas and only one Tagora still registered with the British Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), compared to well over 5000 Talbot Express vans.'

Do we have any similar record, and if so is it publicly known how many Talbots are left in Ireland?

Talbots

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