Matra (an acronym for Mécanique Aviation Traction) was a French industrial conglomerate. During its years of operation, it was engaged in a wide range of business activities, primarily focused around automobiles, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry.

Following the acquisition of vehicle manufacturer Automobiles René Bonnet, the company formed Matra Automobiles during the 1960s and made the Matra brand famous through the production of a successful range of racing cars and sports cars. Its car division worked closely with other vehicle manufacturers, most significantly Renault, prior to the decline and sale of Matra Automobiles during the early 2000s. However, within a decade, Matra had sold its road car division to American-owned car manufacturer Chrysler Europe, having shifted focus onto its other growing business activities. In addition to road cars, Matra entered into a wide range of businesses, eventually diversifying into media, weaponry, aeronautics, automobiles, and music distribution.

djet

The Matra Djet is a French sports car that was originally designed and sold by René Bonnet. As the Bonnet Djet it was the world's first rear mid-engined production road car. Different versions of the car were produced from 1962 until 1967 and sold under a variety of names that included René Bonnet Djet, Matra-Bonnet Djet, Matra Sports Djet and finally, Matra Sports Jet.

The car started out as the René Bonnet Djet in June 1962. This model became known in retrospect as the Djet I. The car was named "Djet" because Bonnet thought the French would not pronounce the word "jet" correctly. It was powered by a 65 PS 1,108 cc engine from a Renault 8 in a mid-engine location mated to a gearbox from the Renault Estafette van. This power-train gave the car a top speed of 165 km/h, or 190 km/h in the later Djet III with a Gordini engine. A fiberglass body was chosen for its lightness, ease of repairs, and to keep initial investment costs low. The body was made by Matra's Générale d'Applications Plastiques subsidiary in Romorantin, and was bonded directly to a steel chassis. The chassis were built in Bonnet's factory in Champigny-sur-Marne (a Paris suburb), where final assembly also took place.

m530

The Matra Sports M530 is a sports car created and built by the French engineering group Matra. It was in production from 1967 to 1973.

In 1965 Matra's CEO Jean-Luc Lagardère decided to develop a successor to the Matra Djet that was more appealing to the non-racing public — a voiture des copains (car for friends). The resulting Matra M530 was the first "true" Matra sports car, the Djet having been a René Bonnet design. The car was named after Matra's R.530 missile, and was designed by former Simca designer Philippe Guédon, with the body styled by Jacques Nochet.

With 70 DIN hp from its Ford V4 engine, the car had a top speed of 175 km/h. 1969 brought many changes to the M530. The engine benefited from changes made by Ford to their own product line, including use of a different carburetor, which raised power output to 75 hp.

Production of the M530 ceased in 1973 after a total of 9609 cars were built.

bagheera

The Matra Bagheera is a sports car built by the automotive division of the French engineering group Matra in cooperation with automaker Simca. It was marketed as the Matra-Simca Bagheera until its final year of production, when its designation was changed to the Talbot-Matra Bagheera following Chrysler Europe's demise and subsequent takeover by PSA.

As many as possible of the major components were sourced from the Chrysler-Simca parts inventory. Although the engine, gearbox and many suspension elements came directly from the Simca 1100, this new Matra was to be a mid-engined car rather than front-wheel drive like the donor car. The public release of the car took place at the 1973 24 Heures du Mans. At the same time Simca had arranged to have 500 yellow Bagheeras available at their dealers across France. Towards the end of 1973, production levels had reached 65 cars per day. In June 1974, within eighteen months of its release, more than 10,000 Bagheeras had been sold.

The 19 panels that made up the Bagheera's body were made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester, which were then attached to the chassis. The process used to make the panels was called `LP', and it used a low-pressure high-temperature pressing method to produce panels using relatively inexpensive tooling. The only engine offered at first was the 1,294 cc from Simca's 1100 Ti model. In the Bagheera this engine developed 84 hp, two more horsepower than in the 1100 Ti. In 1976 a larger version of the same engine became available when the 1,442 cc  engine from the Simca 1308 GT was added to the lineup.

The Bagheera won the 1973 Style Auto Award, beating out competition that included the Lancia Stratos, Lancia Beta coupé and Ferrari Dino 308 GT4.

murena

The Matra Murena is a mid-engined, rear wheel drive sports car that was produced from 1980 through 1983.

The Murena, whose name is Italian for "Moray", was the successor to the Matra Bagheera, a similar vehicle that resulted from an earlier collaboration between Matra and Simca. Development proceeded under two project names; "M551" for the 1.6-litre version and "M552" for the 2.2-litre version. The Murena drew heavily from the corporate parts bin, using engines from the Talbot Solara and Talbot Tagora, a transaxle from the Citroën CX, tail light clusters (but with custom lenses), steering rack and front suspension from the Talbot Horizon, front indicator and running lights from the Renault 12, and door handles from the Peugeot 505.

Even though it used a chassis very similar in principle to the Bagheera and the same basic body-style, the styling for the Murena was all-new. The final shape was extremely aerodynamic for the time. Production of the Matra Murena ended in July 1983, when the Matra factory switched over to building the first generation of Renault Espace minivan.

In total 10680 were produced.

rancho

The Matra Rancho is a leisure activity vehicle created by the French engineering group Matra, in cooperation with the automaker Simca, to capitalize on the off-road trend started by the Range Rover. The Rancho provided an "off-road look" at a lower price. The Rancho was launched in 1977, and became a popular model, but this did not alleviate larger problems at Chrysler Europe (Simca's parent company). Chrysler finally sold its European arm to PSA in 1978, which was then rebranded as Talbot in 1979. The Matra-Simca Rancho became the Talbot Matra Rancho and production continued until 1984 (although it remained on sale up to January 1985), reaching 57,792 cars in total.

The Rancho spawned an unlikely successor: the Renault Espace. Matra wanted to replace the Rancho with their prototype of the Espace known as the “dessin orange”, which translates to “the orange drawing” in English – both the prototype and the background it was drawn on were orange. It predicted the basic shape of the first Espace but only had three doors instead of five. Peugeot (who controlled Matra at the time) deemed the project too expensive and not promising enough. Determined to take its design to production Matra knocked on Renault's door and they quickly adopted the project, one that upon its launch in 1984 arguably became the first European minivan.

espace

The Renault Espace is a large luxury crossover MPV vehicle manufactured by Renault for five generations. The first three generations of the Espace were amongst the first contemporary minivans or MPVs, and were manufactured by Matra for Renault. The fourth generation, also an MPV, was manufactured by Renault.

The Espace concept was originally conceived in the 1970s by the British designer Fergus Pollock, who was working for Chrysler UK, at its design centre at Whitley in Coventry. Matra, spearheaded by Greek designer Antonis Volanis, developed the design for Simca, the then French subsidiary of Chrysler, with the intent of marketing the vehicle as a Talbot. It would replace the Matra Rancho leisure activity vehicle on the Matra production lines.

In 1978, six years before the Espace went into production, Chrysler UK and Simca were sold to the French company PSA Peugeot Citroën, which phased out Simca within a decade because of falling sales. PSA decided the Espace was too expensive and  Matra and took the idea to Renault.

The Espace was eventually launched by Renault in July 1984. After a slow start, a mere nine Espaces were sold in the first month, consumers realised the benefits of the MPV concept and the Espace became popular. The introduction of the Espace required the relatively small Matra factory to cease production of the Murena to make room for the Espace. The espace is currently in his  fifth generation and being produced by Renault as off 2002.

espace f1

In 1995, Renault displayed a show car called the Espace F1, which was created by Matra to celebrate both the tenth anniversary of the Espace and Renault's involvement in Formula One racing. Though it resembled an Espace with substantial bodywork changes, the vehicle had more in common with a Formula One car.

The vehicle used a lightweight carbon fibre F1 style chassis in combination with a carbon fibre reinforced Espace J63 series body (as opposed to fibreglass on the standard model). Powering the Espace F1 was an 800 PS  (upgraded from its original rating of 700 PS) 3.5 litre, forty valve Renault RS5 V10 engine, as used in the 1993 Williams-Renault FW15C.

As with an F1 car, the V10 engine was mid engined (as opposed to the conventional front-engined layout) and the power was transmitted to the rear wheels via a six speed semi automatic gearbox, also used in the Williams FW15C.

avantime

The Matra Company's racing team, under the names of Matra Sports, Equipe Matra Elf and Equipe Matra Sports (after a takeover by Simca in 1969 as Matra-Simca Division Automobile), was formed in 1965 and based at Champagne-sur-Seine (1965–1967), Romorantin-Lanthenay (1967–1969) and Vélizy-Villacoublay (1969–1979). In 1979 the team was taken over by Peugeot and renamed as Automobiles Talbot.

Matra competed as a constructor in Formula One from 1967 to 1972 and as an engine supplier between 1975 to 1982, winning the drivers' and constructors' championships in 1969.

In the mid-1960s, Matra enjoyed considerable success in Formula 3 and F2 racing, particularly with the MS5 monocoque-based car, winning the French and European championships. In 1967, Jacky Ickx surprised the F1 establishment by posting the third-fastest qualifying time of 8:14" at the German Nürburgring in his 1600cc Matra MS7 F2, which was allowed to enter alongside the 3000cc F1 cars. In the race, he failed to finish due to a broken suspension.

Matra entered Formula One in 1968 when Jackie Stewart was a serious contender, winning several Grands Prix in the Tyrrell-run Matra MS10 which competed alongside the works team.

The F1 team was established at Vélizy-Villacoublay in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. The car's most innovative feature was the use of aviation-inspired structural fuel tanks. These allowed the chassis to be around 15 kg lighter, while still being stronger than its competitors. The FIA considered the technology to be unsafe and decided to ban it for 1970.

The Matra MS10 is a Formula One car entered by the Matra International team during the 1968 Formula One season. It, along with its V12-powered sibling MS11, was Matra's first purpose-built F1 car and won three races in 1968, taking Jackie Stewart to second place in the Drivers' Championship and Matra International to third place in the Constructors' Championship.

Matra CEO Jean-Luc Lagardère made a strategic decision for the 1969 championship: the Matra works team would not compete in Formula One. Matra would instead focus its efforts on Ken Tyrrell's privateer team (renamed Matra International) and build a new DFV powered car with structural fuel tanks, even though it would only be eligible for a single season. The decision was even more radical given that Matra was seeking a partnership with Simca, which would preclude using Ford-branded engines for the following year. Stewart won the 1969 title easily with the new Cosworth-powered Matra MS80, which was designed by Gérard Ducarouge and Bernard Boyer, and corrected most of the weaknesses of the MS10. It was a spectacular achievement from a constructor that had only entered Formula One the previous year. France became only the third country (after the United Kingdom and Italy) to have produced a winning constructor, and Matra became the only constructor to have won the Constructors' Championship without running its own works team.

For 1970 following the agreement with Simca, Matra asked Tyrrell to use their V12 engine rather than the Cosworth. Stewart got to test the Matra V12, but since a large part of the Tyrrell budget was provided by Ford, and another significant sponsor was French state-owned petroleum company Elf, which had an agreement with Renault that precluded supporting a Simca partner, the partnership between Matra and Tyrrell ended.

Matra V12 engines powered the Shadow DN7 car in two races of 1975 and then the Ligier Formula 1 team from 1976–1978, and again from 1981-1982, winning three races (the 1977 Swedish Grand Prix, 1981 Austrian Grand Prix and 1981 Canadian Grand Prix). Jacques Laffite´s victory at the 1977 Swedish Grand Prix was the first Formula One victory for a French team and a French engine, as well as the first all-French victory in the Formula One World Championship.