The Nostalgia of Forgotten Gods: Matra, France, 1965-2003

Matra was founded in France at the beginning of World War II to operate in the aviation and defense sectors and then moved into the aerospace and transportation fields after the war. A key figure for Matra was engineer Jean Luc Lagardère, who was chosen in 1962 by founders Marcel Chassagny and Sylvain Floirat as the company's chief executive officer. With his help, new fields were explored, diversifying its activities in automation, telecommunications, information technology, urban transportation, and automobiles.

Lagardère, in addition to being talented, was passionate about motorsports and arranged for Matra to acquire René Bonnet Automobiles, which had just created the Djet, a compact sports car with a fiberglass body equipped with a Renault engine, which took the highly respected Matra name. The aerospace company's entry into the automotive market was facilitated by a fortunate coincidence: The first Russian astronaut, the famous Yuri Gagarin, while visiting the Matra factories, discovered the small car and fell in love with it. There was no hesitation: A photograph next to the car and a special gift for him. The cost was largely compensated by the great publicity obtained.

An example of the Matra Djet was given to Russia's first astronaut Yuri Gagarin and proved to be great publicity.

The pinnacle of popularity of Matra came shortly thereafter, when in the mid-1960s it began building single-seaters for Formula 2 and Formula 3 until eventually winning the Formula 1 World Championship in 1969 with Jackie Stewart. The aircraft factory style was reflected in the single-seaters and the "France blue" dominated the tracks even though the engine was the English Cosworth, which turned out to be a rather false touch overall.

Jackie Stewart became 1969 World Champion at the wheel of the Matra MS80.

For the French, who know how to value their technology and their achievements, this was not enough: A victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with an all-French car was necessary. With the support of the Gitanes cigarette budget and the President of the Republic de Gaulle himself, Matra designed and built a magnificent V12 engine that took it to victory three years in a row from 1972 to 1974. The same engine was also used by Guy Ligier for his Formula 1 team.

Matra dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans for three consecutive years from 1972 to 1974.

Matras were used on the road and for racing competitions. The approach was consistently innovative with the use of composite materials and fiberglass. Memorable was the M530 and later on, in collaboration with the Simca group and Talbot Peugeot, the Bagheera, Rancho and Murena were born. They were all out of the box and original.

The Matra M530, produced from 1967 to 1973 was immediately recognizable by its design.

The automobile, however, remained a marginal sector for the company, which had one last memorable spurt with the revolutionary Renault Espace. The marginality of profits and the difficulties in making the increasingly in-demand overall quality consistent with unconventional cars, nonetheless, made the conditions for new projects insufficient. The last of these, namely that of the charming Avantime, was unsuccessful and so the Matra myth ended with the breakup of the company in 2003. What will never vanish is the memory of a brand that had the merit of always being different from everyone else.

Matra's history in motorsports ended with its collaboration with Renault, first to assemble the Espace and then the ill-fated Avantime.