Description
Here, reluctantly for sale, is my 1959 Simca Aronde Deluxe Six....
Condition wise, the car is very solid.... There have been welding repairs carried out on the car, most of which look pretty good (Although the sills, which have been replaced, aren't the prettiest of jobs [Pictured], so anyone seeking perfection would probably want to do them again) and currently the only other area requiring attention in this respect, is a rust hole on the rear valance (Pictured). The paint is mostly original, and wearing thin in places.... It would benefit from a respray, ideally.
The interior of the car (Including the headlining) has all been removed, but most of the pieces required to re-trim it appear to be present.... The original bench seat has been replaced with a pair of rather unsightly blue Audi TT seats, a modification which I would personally, be seeking to reverse, if I were keeping the car.
I have had the car running since I've had it, and the engine seems okay, but the battery needs replacing, and the impression I got was that there are just several things that need sorting, in order to get it running perfectly. The majority of the exterior lights/ trim are present, but most of it would require reconditioning in some way (Chroming/ re-painting/ new seals).
The car will need a complete new exhaust (I would personally go for a stainless system) and the handbrake cable is missing. Three of the Goodyear tyres look new, and the fourth (Whilst having plenty of tread) has some quite bad cracking between the treads.
Over all, I'd say the car needs quite a lot of quite easy work done, to get it usable, then obviously it's your tastes and your budget that would determine where you go with it from there.... It's probably the interior that needs the most work, so it'd be ideal for anyone with skills in that area.
Pictures were all taken late July 2025 (So are very recent) aside from the last pic, which was taken about thirty years ago, but shows how gorgeous the car can look!Some people may be confused that the car has a 90a body, but was made in 1959, after the P60 had been introduced....
This car is Chassis-Type "AJ".... The "Deluxe Six" was sold as a "Base" model, alongside the new P60, in 1959/ 60, for (I believe) the domestic market only.... It used the old 1090cc "6CV" engine, last seen in the Simca 8, as opposed to the more familiar 1290cc engine, meaning that the car fell into a lower taxation class, and could be sold at a cheaper price, at a lower end of the market than the P60 Aronde.
Obviously, the Aronde is a rare enough car in the U. K. anyway, but I believe that mine could well be the only Deluxe Six in the country.
The car was first imported in to the U. K. in 1986, and is generally acknowledged to be the Aronde that was used as "Background" in the 1987 Stanley Kubrick film "Full Metal Jacket" (Filmed in the U. K.) where the car can be seen driving back and forth in the background, as the soldiers negotiate with the prostitute in Ho Chi Minh City.... After this, I believe the car spent some time as part of the Yorkshire Car Collection, Keighley, (There is a YouTube video of the Collection, during which the car pops up, a couple of times) after which it was sold off....
I first owned the car in about 1994, when I decide to trade my (Then modern) Citroen BX for it, with a Classic Car trader in Finningham, near Stowmarket, Suffolk.... The car could honestly be described as in "Excellent" condition, back then.... I used the car as my daily transport for a year or so (Fun in the Summer, not so much in the Winter!) and it generated lots of interest, wherever we went, with many people thinking it was a Skoda, or a Volvo.... Simca evidently isn't that well known, in the U. K!
I decided to Semi-retire the car after about a year, to my Dad's garage, and bought a Citroen CX to use as my daily. The Aronde stayed, for another year or two, until my partner needed a car (She wouldn't drive the CX) so I was forced to trade the Aronde (Still in very good order at the time) for a horrible little Fiat Panda 750, with a dealer in Mildenhall, Suffolk.... Not my proudest moment!
That was probably around 1997.... And after that, I always remembered my time with the Aronde very fondly.... Fast forward to five or six years ago, and I was idly scrolling Facebook and (Long story short) ended up befriending the current keeper of "My" Aronde!
He'd picked the car up, by now in quite a sorry state, and begun bringing it back to it's former glory.... We kept in touch, and then, a few years ago, he offered to sell the car to me.... An offer that I gladly accepted.
I received the car in exactly the condition you see here.... I had big plans to carry on the work to get the car back on the road, and sold a much-loved Citroen Acadiane, in order to "Concentrate" on the Aronde, but various things (House-build, Heart-Attack, etc. etc.) have conspired against me, and sadly I haven't really touched the car, the whole time I've owned it.
My health is improving, and there's now light at the end of the tunnel, as regards our house build, but I have to acknowledge that my first love is the A-Series Citroen, and I have just acquired another Acadiane, which needs work, so sadly, I have decided to let the Aronde go (Hopefully to someone who'll put it back on the road, and love it) to focus my efforts on the Acadiane.
I have a box file, containing magazines, in which the car appears, brochures, and bits of the cars history (Including tax discs that I bought, first time around!) but the history is by no means exhaustive.... This will go with the car, obviously.
Price-wise, I have set the price at considerably less than I paid for the car (Second time around) as ideally, I need to make space for my Acadiane A. S. A. P. and would rather the car goes to someone who'll get the car back on the road (And keep in touch, with updates!) than worry about recouping my money.
Any questions? Would rather correspond via e-mail/ text, as I don't generally answer my phone, particularly when I'm at work.... Will always respond to enquiries as quickly as possible.
Best wishes,
David.
PLEASE NOTE: Contrary to what it says at the head of this listing, the car is actually LEFT HAND DRIVE.
