BAGHEERA 1970

Bagheera 1970
Technical colour drawing. Mixed media on black cardboard. Mechanical section, central section and oscar. Frame sizes:
18.90 x 40.16 in.
At the end of the Sixties the situation of the Matra was double-sided: on the one hand the successes in the sports field kept its prestige high, on the other hand, the car sales low figures imposed immediate solutions. Therefore Lagardère thought to join with another manufacturer to reduce the costs of designing and developing a new model that would replace the 530. Lagardère found the ally in Simca, a firm with a good commercial past behind it, although since some year had entered in Chrysler's orbit. Simca was interested in the project proposed by Lagardère as it was focusing on replacing one of its medium-low end coupé, namely the Simca 1200 S, arrived at the end of its career and based on the mechanics of the old Simca 1000 dating back to 1961. The agreement between Matra and Simca was signed during the summer of 1969, but was announced to the media only on December 17 of the same year. During the first half of 1970 Matra and Simca discussed the orientation to be given to the project and the car that would have resulted, always keeping an eye on the costs of design and development. So it was that a first project, signed M540, was started in the autumn of 1970 but abandoned a little later in favor of a new project, called M550. The car had to be built with fiberglass body: the body had to be compact and sporty, but the mechanics had to derive from the large series to contain the price. Since only two places would have reduced the target audience and four places were too restrictive for the designers, the idea was born to create three places in a single row, a solution already explored by few cars in the past.