Bertone Shake
Bertone, the famed Italian styling house, was on to something when it reimagined the oily bits of a Simca 1200 S Coupé as an off-road buggy for Chrysler (Simca) France.
Striking bodywork, modified chassis, rear engine, rear drive, and Marcello Gandini’s signature on the sketches — how did this not get made?
Thought there’s quite an off-road section through the cars I’ve written about, it’s important to remember that the turn-your-Beetle-into-an-off-road-buggy craze was largely accomplished without automaker support. Kit car manufacturers sprouted up, sure, but it’s not like Pontiac or Honda or Volkswagen built their own and gave it a factory warranty.
For buggies themselves, Meyers (Manx) was the original, and remains one of the best-ever…but not best-built. Nuccio Bertone and Gandini noticed this, and got to work.
The follow-through is impressive, with Bertone mentioning in its press materials (original text below) that a lack of build quality didn’t seem to be holding back annual sales, with market potential estimated at 600,000 units for the U.S. alone. Thinking ahead to side-by-sides like the Polaris RZR or Can-Am Off-Road Maverick X3, Bertone wasn’t too far off in its assessment.
Indeed, I wonder what would have happened if a manufacturer jumped onto the dune buggy craze and what the fallout would be like: would buggies exist today, now spec’d out with Bluetooth, touchscreen navigation screens, contrasting stitching, and a 3 year warranty? Wait…that’s a Jeep.
OK, a Jeep, but at a Shake-weight of just 580 kg (1,278 lbs). With lightness and a punchy, proven 4-cylinder engine as its assets, the Bertone Shake was an attempt at what a manufacturer-supported buggy may look like.
Version one, yellow with black details and knobby tires • Bertone
Donor car? Simca 1200 S Coupé, with:
- Strengthened chassis
- Folding windshield, integrated roll bar (very safety-forward for that era)
- 1204cc, 4-cylinder engine from Simca
- 85 horsepower
- 179 km/h (111 mph top speed)
Like the Go by Bertone, the interior is completely exposed to the elements. Unlike the Go, the Shake has canvas lawn chairs. For extra comfort, the aggressively ribbed spare sat between the two seats, doubling as an arm rest.
Bertone Shake, version II • imcdb.org, Bertone
I’m not the only one who was smitten with this car — Bertone made at least one more change (painting it white / red and adjusting badging), and Matra made additional prototypes (one was crash tested!) with a view for production.
Maybe. In 2004, a Bonhams auction listing for the car states it was repainted at some point in its life (and may have been painted back to the original scheme since then? If you’re Shake-informed, get in touch and I will update this article to suit.)
Cool car, so what the heck happened?
Then, this version was made at some point; possibly before the graphics were added. • Bertone
Well, through the 1960s, if you didn’t know, Simca was the French arm of Fiat. Ford — read about the Matford here — sold its stake to Chrysler, which then went on to invest more and more heavily in its European business, hoping it would produce a small car(s) for the U.S. to eclipse other imports. (Look up the Plymouth Cricket Wagon to see how that went.)
In Brazil, well, Brazil made its own special blend of Simca car parts…
michael banovsky
Back to Europe. In 1970 (when the first Shake debuted), through a series of investments and strategic moves of consolidation not only in France, this hot mess of a largely badge-engineered automaker became Chrysler Europe. In 1977, Chrysler Europe was bought by Peugeot for $1.00, plus any outstanding debts, if you’re wondering how valued its business was by that time.
Matra did engineer two ‘Matra Buggy’ prototypes of its own (crashing one), with the surviving blue-under-white example looking like a period piece NASA off-roader or Fantastic Four movie prop. Besides the hubcaps, a more traditional analog gauge setup is a straightforward way to tell them apart.
I write this all for some context as to why a niche of a niche product wasn’t top priority for the powers-that-were, though I think I speak for all like-minded weird car spotters that having a few thousand Shakes built would have been a far better way to remember Chrysler Europe’s dying years.
With a buggy, not a whimper.
