Our Simca Aronde A90 Elysee in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez
This page is not only about an old car. It is mainly about the place taken by an Aronde A90 Elysee in our family story, between drives, patient mechanical work, sudden loss and a new beginning.
In the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, it is one of the cars that comes with us most naturally, because it belongs as much to memory as to real use.
Key facts. First Aronde bought in 2013. Forest fire in August 2021. Second A90 Elysee found in spring 2022, almost identical to the first one, with only the two-tone line placed differently.
The first Aronde, bought in 2013
Our first A90 Elysee arrived in 2013. It had not been restored and it was not presented as a flawless collector's piece, but it was complete, sound in its structure and still coherent inside. That was exactly the kind of car we like: an old car that had lived, but had not yet been smoothed away by an overly heavy restoration.
This Aronde became the starting point for many things. It drew us more clearly into the world of post-war Simcas and gave a concrete shape to a passion that had until then remained more diffuse.
Putting it back on the road without erasing it
The car needed work, but not a total reconstruction. The engine was free, the chassis rails were sound and the body stayed healthy despite tired paint. We therefore chose a serious recommissioning rather than a complete transformation.
The tank, fuel filtering, cooling system, brakes, tyres and several engine ancillaries were dealt with so that the car could be used with confidence. The idea was simple: keep the spirit of the car, its patina and its history while recovering a normal road use.
August 2021, the car disappears
In August 2021, a forest fire destroyed that first Aronde. The loss was sudden. It was not only a car standing in storage, but something already loaded with drives, mechanical gestures and memories that were very much ours.
That was also when we realised how central the Aronde had become for us. Its disappearance did not erase that place; it made it even more visible.
Finding almost the same car in 2022
A few months later, in 2022, we came across another A90 Elysee that looked very close to the first one. Same spirit, same overall balance, same period. The clearest difference lay in the two-tone paint line, placed higher toward the boot than on our first car.
Julien, who lived much closer to where the car was, went to inspect it quickly and handled the first steps. The buying decision came almost immediately. We were not looking for an abstract Aronde; we were looking for the one that could continue a story already under way.
A family story before it became a page on the site
If this car matters so much to us, it is also because it is tied to an older family history. Jean-Noel spent many years working in Poissy, on a site that passed through the names Simca, Chrysler, Talbot and then Peugeot. That proximity to a very concrete industrial memory changes the way one looks at these cars.
Our second Aronde does not replace the first one. It continues something else. It is the car we gladly take through the Gulf, the one that links yesterday's memories to today's outings, and the one that explains why the A90 Elysee remains our landmark Simca.
This car belongs to a wider story that continues in the Simca 9 Aronde, along with the Simca Aronde 1300.
Sources
- Photographs and project archives from Les Caramagnols, 2013-2024.
- Wikimedia Commons - Simca Aronde category
- Stellantis Media - Poissy site update
