Cars
Matra. The Rarest Brands in the Top 100 Collections
Matra: An aerospace giant with a passion for cars. From the iconic Djet to Le Mans victories and Renault collaborations, their story echoes innovation and racing triumphs.
It’s fascinating to think that for an aerospace giant like Matra, cars were also an exciting hobby. Matra’s evolution is a complex story that began in the pre-war period and developed significantly during the Second World War, providing support for armaments. 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.
Jean Luc Lagardère’s love for automobiles led to the significant French private industry entering the world of cars for the first time by acquiring René Bonnet. Their first creation was a small sports car called Djet, which was quite similar to the Alpine A110 and was equipped with a Renault engine - the 8 Gordini, to be precise.
