I am just about to get to the office when I found the jewel in the picture, parked in a corner of Place de Fontenoy, in the heart of Paris’ VII arrondissement. I cannot help taking a picture, as this car is old enough to be very rare. Moreover, this SIMCA immediately evokes a great stream of memories.
For that is my childhood’s car. My parents had one, a SIMCA 1200, which had originally been red and I knew only in blue. Plaque B-8775-Y, it lasted from the early seventies until July 1987, when it was replaced by a Ford Orion. It must have run for more than 150.000 Km. I still remember vaguely that night, on National road II between Malgrat de Mar and Vidreres, in one of the countless allers-retours from Barcelona to Palafrugell, when we excitedly saw the meter going from 99.999 to 00.000.
I always liked that car. It was relatively rare and hence easily recognizable. I used to like its rounded forms that I preferred to other’s cars at the time. I always saw two eyes in those lights, like a smiling face that looked at me. So many hours spent at the back seats with my brother, teasing each other. Seeing a black plaque (a French one, like the one in the picture) would be a pretext to pinch the other. And so many other games that used to irritate our parents. The runs to see who would get to touch the car first after a day on the beach. And the long imaginary travels I used to do when I could sneak in the car and sit at the wheel on my own.
All that melancholy that used to fill me when we would leave Palafrugell for Barcelona and I could see the town through the rear window. The stops in Caldetes to get water at the thermal source. As a small kid I failed to understand how could it be that we could drink it after a while if it was so hot. Those huge traffic jams when going through Mataró, when I used to amuse myself observing the path taken by that coin towards the money box at the neon sign on top of Caixa Laietana. And so many other moments that come to my mind thanks to objects’ enormous evocative power. More than twenty years ago.
Private transport and second residence, symbols of a new middle class emerging from the Francoist “desarrollismo”, the same middle class that finished by forcing the coming of democracy. People who had to build their future by working and remaining passive and silent in a repressed and repressive society, in a regime that was first totalitarian then authoritarian and legitimized itself in this prosperity, yet never abandoned or denounced its violent and criminal essence. This very prosperity was the beginning of the end of that horror. Thanks to the effort of people like my parents I could grow up in a free country.
For that is my childhood’s car. My parents had one, a SIMCA 1200, which had originally been red and I knew only in blue. Plaque B-8775-Y, it lasted from the early seventies until July 1987, when it was replaced by a Ford Orion. It must have run for more than 150.000 Km. I still remember vaguely that night, on National road II between Malgrat de Mar and Vidreres, in one of the countless allers-retours from Barcelona to Palafrugell, when we excitedly saw the meter going from 99.999 to 00.000.
I always liked that car. It was relatively rare and hence easily recognizable. I used to like its rounded forms that I preferred to other’s cars at the time. I always saw two eyes in those lights, like a smiling face that looked at me. So many hours spent at the back seats with my brother, teasing each other. Seeing a black plaque (a French one, like the one in the picture) would be a pretext to pinch the other. And so many other games that used to irritate our parents. The runs to see who would get to touch the car first after a day on the beach. And the long imaginary travels I used to do when I could sneak in the car and sit at the wheel on my own.
All that melancholy that used to fill me when we would leave Palafrugell for Barcelona and I could see the town through the rear window. The stops in Caldetes to get water at the thermal source. As a small kid I failed to understand how could it be that we could drink it after a while if it was so hot. Those huge traffic jams when going through Mataró, when I used to amuse myself observing the path taken by that coin towards the money box at the neon sign on top of Caixa Laietana. And so many other moments that come to my mind thanks to objects’ enormous evocative power. More than twenty years ago.
Private transport and second residence, symbols of a new middle class emerging from the Francoist “desarrollismo”, the same middle class that finished by forcing the coming of democracy. People who had to build their future by working and remaining passive and silent in a repressed and repressive society, in a regime that was first totalitarian then authoritarian and legitimized itself in this prosperity, yet never abandoned or denounced its violent and criminal essence. This very prosperity was the beginning of the end of that horror. Thanks to the effort of people like my parents I could grow up in a free country.
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