Monica is the name of a French luxury automobile produced in the commune of
Balbigny in the department of
Loire
The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhôn ...
between 1972 and 1974 of which just 40 cars were reported to have been made. The Monica 560 V8 was at the time considered to be by many automobile aficionados a magnificent French luxury GT and the natural successor of the earlier well known Facel Vega HK500 V8 GT which also has a Chrysler V8 5905 cc 16V 360bhp engine, and of which just 490 were produced between 1958 and 1961.
The beginning
The Monica car was a project of Jean Tastevin, a graduate engineer of the
École centrale de Paris
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
. His father Arnaud bought the Atelier et Chantiers de Balbigny in 1930. That company was a manufacturer of mining and railway equipment. In 1955 Jean succeeded his father, becoming Chairman and Managing Director. He renamed the company Compagnie française de produits métallurgiques, or CFPM, and began to specialize in the manufacture and rental of railroad tank cars.
The factory where the rolling stock was manufactured operated under a different name, being Compagnie Française de Matériels Ferroviaires (CFMF). The company prospered, eventually coming to have 400 employees.
Tastevin was an automobile enthusiast who personally owned cars from Aston Martin and Facel Vega. After Facel Vega shut down in 1964 he bought a Jaguar, but regretted not being able to buy a French-made car of that class.
In pursuit of both his interest in cars and a way to diversify his railway business, Tastevin began making plans to launch his own brand of automobile in 1966. He made his long-time assistant, Henri Szykowksi, the project manager. He would also set aside a portion of his factory in Balgigny so that the cars could truly be said to be made in France.
The car was named in honour of Tastevin's wife, Monique Tastevin.
Development history and prototypes
Automotive engineer and racing driver Chris Lawrence's company LawrenceTune Engines had developed a 2.6-litre version of the
Standard engine used in the
Triumph TR4. Lawrence's version used a
crossflow cylinder head of his own design and Tecalemit-Jackson fuel injection to make a claimed bhp.
Automotive journalist
Gérard "Jabby" Crombac had seen the engine at the 1966 Racing Show at Olympia West Hall in London. The article he wrote about it had cau