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A steam turbine powered by nuclear power, electric motors in the rear wheels, electromagnetic suspension and radar control - the Simca Fulgur pushed the automotive imagination to its limit when it premiered in 1959
Photo: Ford / Auto-Medienportal.Net
In the spring of 1958, the French edition of the comic magazine "Tintin" asked local car manufacturers for ideas for a car of the future.
The response to the call was sobering.
Only Simca, at that time with Renault and Citroën among the top three car companies in France, answered.
And that too by chance. The then 26-year-old Robert Opron - later creator of automobile icons such as Citroën SM, Renault Fuego or Alpine GTA - had only recently started at Simca and was the youngest member of the design team to deal with the »comic inquiry«. The result was the Simca Fulgur, Opron's first car and at the same time his most visionary.
The sketches showed a kind of flying saucer: a large, almost completely transparent plastic dome arched over the flat body of the car with its fully clad, barely visible wheels. Two tail units rose from the rear of the vehicle in a V-shape. »Tintin« reported on the automobile of the future, of course, and shortly afterwards the comic series »L'affaire Fulgur« appeared. Normally it would have been done with Opron's ideas and sketches, but those times were not normal for Simca.
The company, the name is an acronym for “Société Industrielle de Mécanique et Carrosserie Automobile”, was founded in 1934 to build Fiat vehicles under license in France.
From the 1950s, however, Simca also developed and manufactured its own models, took over a former Ford factory in Poissy and gained access to the US market because Chrysler joined the French from 1958.
French flair and US capital - that resulted in a spirit of optimism in which ideas could flourish.
And so the Simca executives wanted Opron's concept study to take shape on a 1: 1 scale.
Instructions to the "electronic brain"
So it started with the Fulgur project (Latin for lightning).
Originally the vehicle was supposed to be presented at the Paris Motor Show in autumn 1958, but it took until the Geneva Motor Show in spring 1959. There the audience was amazed - the Simca Fulgur looked remarkable and had an unprecedented design.
In a press release on the study that was distributed at the time and quoted by the vintage car internet portal “Zwischengas”, it says: “The driver has a radar device to help him find his way around.
He gives his control instructions to an electronic brain that controls the steering of the car.
On the highways, a control tower takes the Fulgur under its wing, the steering is fully automatic;
the power supply through electromagnetic induction ... «
Planned as a nuclear vehicle
So, as early as 1958, autonomous driving was a vision of the future.
And the electric drive was already considered to be trend-setting.
In the rear wheels of the Simca Fulgur, an electric machine should provide propulsion.
At higher speeds, according to the plan, the front wheels should be retracted and the car should be stabilized by a gyroscope system, two so-called gyroscopes.
A mini nuclear reactor, which was supposed to drive a steam turbine, was planned as an energy source away from the motorway.
According to the theory, the reactor works with strontium 82 and provides a range of around 5000 kilometers before it has to be replaced.
Other details of the Fulgur were also visionary, but less fantastically designed.
For example, the fan-like headlights, whose light intensity should increase or decrease with speed.
Or the temperature-controlled seats, which should adapt to the body shape of the respective occupant.
And also the transparent, glare-free and UV radiation filtering plastic dome over the interior.
A shell full of high-tech ideas
None of the technologies mentioned were actually built into the Simca Fulgur.
Nevertheless, the vehicle caused a stir wherever it appeared at trade fairs after its premiere in Geneva.
The idea of getting from A to B in this high-tech capsule at a constant speed of 150 km / h and without doing anything on your own was evidently as stimulating as it was tempting.
For Simca, however, the Fulgur brought nothing that could be counted - apart from a lot of attention at first. Opron switched to Citroën in 1962, the study was eventually scrapped. Simca was sold to Peugeot in 1978, and some model series were sold for a while under the name Talbot. However, there was still no talk of electric mobility or autonomous driving, and the Simca Fulgur has long been forgotten.