Matra - The Rarest Cars.

The first Matra, the small Djet, was introduced in 1962 after the acquisition of the manufacturer René Bonnet.

French aerospace giant Matra had also an exciting hobby as a carmaker.

Matra cars' evolution is a complex story that began in the pre-war period and developed significantly during the Second World War.

In the early post-war period, it transformed into a military and aerospace technology industry. Matra is an acronym derived from Mécanique Aviation TRAction, and the credit for selecting a man who became a symbol for motorsport enthusiasts, the engineer Jean Luc Lagardère, goes to Matra’s creators, Marcel Chassagny and Sylvain Floirat.

Marta's first creation was a small sports car called Djet, which was quite similar to the Alpine A110 and was equipped with a Renault engine.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, became the spokesperson for the French Berlinetta after he was presented with one.

Matra Djet car gained fame during the early years of space exploration. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, visited the Matra factory.

The company’s executives astutely decided to present the car to Gagarin, which served both as propaganda and as an opportunity for further collaboration in the aerospace industry, where Matra was active.

Matra’s single-seater cars gave Jackie Stewart the Formula 1 World Championship title in 1969.

Matra achieved its peak of notoriety in the mid-1960s when it started producing single-seater cars for both Formula-2 and Formula-3.

The company’s success culminated in the conquest of the Formula-1 World Title with Jackie Stewart in 1969.

Matra cars were immediately recognizable for their style and the fact that, in line with their constant pursuit of innovation, they had fiberglass bodies. Matra M530, produced from 1967 to 1973.

However, for the French, who valued their technology and achievements highly, that was not enough. They needed to win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and to achieve this, the famous and popular Gitanes cigarettes were also brought in.

Matra designed a magnificent V12 engine that led them to win for three consecutive years from 1972 to 1974. The same engine was also used by Gil Ligier for his Formula-1 team.

Matra created a V12 engine and this sports car, called the M670, which dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans for 3 years from 1972 to 1974.

Alongside their racing accomplishments, Matra also produced road cars. The M530 was unforgettable, and later, in collaboration with the Simca group and Talbot Peugeot, the Bagheera, Rancho, and Murena were launched.

The collaboration between Matra and Simca resulted in the Bagheera sports car.

However, we must remember that for a sizeable aerospace company that was starting to take an interest in civil aviation in those years, automobile production was so marginal on their balance sheet that it was destined to disappear.

1973 Marta Rancho off-road vehicle.

1980 Matra Murena.

The swan song of Matra’s car production could be considered the return of their collaboration with Renault, where they built the innovative Espace and the unfortunate Avantime.

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