The car that was ‘built for you to spread your wings’ is the pioneer soft-roader and set the standards in this market sector with such aplomb that has very rarely been equalled. The Matra Rancho story is one of success, but it's end was cemented in place quickly due to a changing world.
Almost like a budget Land Rover, the Matra Rancho could tackle anything you threw at it.
A recent broadsheet article stated that, compared with other designs by Matra’s Antonis Volanis, such as the Renault Espace, the Rancho was not his finest hour. It is an observation that could not be more wrong. Until the mid-1960s Engins Matra was primarily an aerospace company and in 1965 it acquired René Bonnet’s company to which it had supplied the GRP bodies for the D’Jet. Four years later Simca acquired the Vélizy-Villacoublay concern which was then famed for its Formula 3 and Formula 2 cars, together with Jackie Stewart’s victory at the wheel of a Matra MS80 in the 1969 World Driver’s Championship. In 1973 the Matra entered into a sales agreement with Chrysler,
Simca’s parent company, meaning that their new Bagheera could be sold by the American giant.
That year also saw the OPEC Fuel Crisis, leading to an inevitable downturn in the demand for sports cars but the idea for an alternative Matra came via the unlikely form of a Spanish Simca dealer. The 1200 Campero was based on the 1100 made at the Barreiros plant and sported an ochre yellow glass fibre utility body created by the Madrid coach builder Antonio Maduro. The result may have resembled a greenhouse with an identity crisis but the formula – light FWD utility with sufficient ground clearance to cope with the appalling roads of the Southern Mediterranean was very marketable.
Matra used an elongated and strengthened platform of the Simca 1100 pick-up for their new project – a vehicle that would combine practicality with glamour. In order to save on costs, the front brakes were from the 1100Ti while the front wings, side doors and windshield were from the 1100 commerciale. The body, which combined a polyester/GRP body rear section with a front constructed of steel, was an offbeat masterpiece from Volanis. One of the Greek designer’s not inconsiderable achievements was to ensure that the new Rancho did not immediately resemble a Simca 1100 on stilts that had reversed into a conservatory.
The matt black decorations greatly assisted in this regard, as did the front nudge bar. The rear passengers enjoyed a literally elevated position (the back seat was four inches higher than those in the front) and there was a roof rack ideal of carrying luggage during a trip across the Sahara. Of course when the Matra-Simca Rancho debuted in May 1977 very few potential customers would have contemplated a trip further than a holiday in Saint-Marc-sur-Mer and thus were unlikely to have encountered a herd of widlebeest. There was a sump guard for anyone contemplating driving along a forest track but the Rancho’s aggressive appearances masked a 1442cc Simca 1308 engine, the 1100’s suspension and front wheel drive in the main the Rancho was ideal wear for people who favoured Safari suits without actually embarking on any form of Safari per se.
UK sales commenced in May 1978 and the Rancho almost instantly carved a niche for itself. On the Continent lightweight FWD utilities were not uncommon and the Matra-Simca followed in the tradition of the Renault Rodeo or Citroën Mehari, albeit in better equipped form. But British motorists had very little frame of reference – local production of the Mini Moke had ceased ten years earlier and unlike the Lada Niva and the Suzuki LJ80, the Rancho was front wheel drive. Nor was it especially cheap, as £5650 would have also bought you a Ford Granada MkII Estate or maybe a Subaru Estate.
The latter was the diametric opposite to the Chrysler France offering in terms of raison d’être – the car from Japan was low key in appearance but offered four wheel drive whilst the Matra-Simca was unabashedly about style. ‘Wing mounted movable lights’ for when the going’s tough’, promised the sales material as trips to Tesco in the 1970s were often fraught with danger.
There was also a tow bar and many Rancho owners harboured the fairly unrealisable dream of hauling a stricken Land Rover to safety. The reality was that the Matra-Simca might have found even an unclassified county road somewhat of a struggle but the dream was all. Any visitor taking a close look at a Rancho at his/her friendly local Chrysler dealer would have soon noticed a very strong resemblance to a Simca 1100 based commercial vehicle but the nudge bars and auxiliary lamps were not mere decorations.
These were an essential aspect of the Rancho’s appeal. In terms of British motoring, the Rancho most resembled the Vanden Plas 1100 and the Vauxhall Viva HB GT. Both were versions of respected standard saloon cars that respectively offered an enhanced level of comfort or a sporting image for the driver – goals that were achieved with a true verve. The swivelling mesh covered spot lamps on the Rancho’s front wings were as over the top as the Viva’s four exhaust pipes or the coronet badging on the ADO16 but all three boasted decoration that was well planned and so charmingly executed.
This was no small achievement for any car – the MG Magnette Farina, the Vanden Plas 1500 and the Rover 25 Streetwise are but three examples of how easy it is to misapply this formula. When the first Ranchos were sighted on British roads there was often a chorus of sneering about ‘cars for hairdressers’ – remarks that were ironically often uttered by saloon bar types who favoured navy blazers and Bobby Charlton comb-overs. This was derision first born of insecurity, for many an imported Jeep Cherokee (not to mention Range Rover) were bought for the main or sole purpose of posing but the Matra was open about this goal.
‘The Rancho has become a very fashionable car to be seen in along the boulevards of Paris’, observed Chrysler at the launch. Advertising copy claimed that here was a ‘very noticeable car for a very unnoticeable price: under six grand’ read the advertising and clearly trading in the Vauxhall FE 2300 Estate would make you look as macho as Lewis Collins in The Professionals. Or at least as tough as Martin Shaw. Sadly the United Kingdom was deprived of some of the more exciting Rancho derivatives – the brilliantly
flamboyant ‘Grand Raid’ with its limited slip differential and electric front winch and the rather attractive Decouverable with detachable side panels – but the standard model was certainly enjoyable enough.
A proud owner could make a convincing case for Rancho ownership – it was spacious (a maximum of 77cu ft of luggage space), well equipped and the optional third row of seats made it a versatile family transport – but throughout its run it remained a car that was targeted blatantly at the greatest poseurs in the history of suburbia. The Rancho’s matt black trimmings and plethora of mesh covers made it seem far more aggressive than any traditional off-roader but at less cost and with far simpler mechanics.
The last Rancho’s were sold in January 1985 and for many years it had proved to be Matra’s most profitable car. The changing badges – the car with the swivelling mesh covered spot lamps commenced life as the Matra-Simca Rancho and ceased production as Talbot Matra Rancho – reflected a background of industrial upheavals, Chrysler selling its French operations to Peugeot in 1978. In the early 1980s Matra planned a replacement Rancho but this was deemed to be potentially too expensive by the firm’s new masters and so approaches were made to Renault about building the latest Volanis creation.
In five door form this became the Espace but the impact of the Rancho was never quite forgotten, even if its achievements often were. Few of the 56,792 examples made over seven years survive but the Rancho’s legacy survives as the Renault Scenic Conquest and its ilk. The Matra-Simca Rancho was the right car for its intended market, created by the right team and built by the right company – and it really did achieve an idiosyncratic form of greatness.