Not many left
Late Simca's and Talbot's end up in the department for rare French cars. The Horizon is such a car. When I applied for leboncoin.fr (French "Finn.no"), I found 14 cars for sale throughout France. On the website Howmanyleft.co.uk there are only 15 Chrysler and Talbot Horizon cars left in the UK.
Even with persistent marketing and many awards, the model was not a success. With so many names and partly failing quality, it could not meet the competition on the market. When production ended in 1987, it was also the end for cars with the Talbot brand. The Talbot Horizon is a car in danger of becoming extinct.
Model history
Horizon is the successor to the popular Simca 1100, - and the last in the line of Simca Talbots before the brand was taken over by Peugeot. The Talbot Horizon has clear similarities with the Golf I and the Fiat Ritmo. The design of the Horizon has held up well. Horizon was referred to under several brand names. In Europe, it was marketed under several names, Chrysler-Simca and later Talbot, which from long ago also had a good reputation in Great Britain. In the US, the model was sold under the names Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. The European cars were produced at the former Simca factory Poissy factory (now PSA), the Rootes factory in Dunsmore, UK, and the Valmet factory in Finland.
Engines
In terms of engine, you could choose 1.1 and 1.3 liters from the Simca 1100, - or 1.5 liters with 83 HP. The pictured model has the 1.5 engine (1442 ccm) which it shared with the Simca 1307/1510, Matra Bagheera and Ranchero among others. Later, this engine also appeared in the Peugeot 309, which was originally developed as a Talbot project.
About the pictures
Thanks to Kim Andersen for photos of his beautiful Horizon. I have checked how many Simca/Talbot/Chryslers have plates in Norway today. It concerns a total of 17 cars and one Dodge Omni, which is a sister model.
Click on an image to view in a larger format.
Copyright notice
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