Yes, you read that right! I never knew this myself until someone mentioned it last year at the forums on dodgechallenger.co.uk forums...

Basically what happened, was these cars were assembled (partially) at Hamtramck, then shipped to the SIMCA plant in France (remember, Ma Mopar had her hands in everything she could get into then, including a funny little French car!). Now, when I say partially disassembled, I mean 95% assembled. Little things, like lights and trim were mainly left off. Another thing unique to the few hundred known examples is their unique vin. We all know how the vins are disseminated on our beloved Yank Challengers. Well, on the Simca-assembled Challengers, the vins are partials of ours. They lack the first four characters, and the plant or origin letter. Basically, the start where the "B" or "E" character would be. Instead, it has a wierd little upside down looking keyhole, the 0 we are used to and the 1xxxxx sequence code. The logical reason for having mostly the sequence code is because that thing is stamped everywhere else on the car! It also has a tag (look at my pietro frua post) similar to the PF challenger as well. The cars also have a unique set of mirrors on the car, manufactured by Talbot (a SIMCA subsidiary by then), and some unique lights (The winchester grey '71 Hemi Cuda convertible has these oddball lights as well).

There is a myriad of reasons as to why or why not Chrysler built these cars in France. After all, they were exporting COMPLETE running cars all over the world (in fact, that grey Hemi Cuda Convertible was built at Hamtramck!), so why take the time and hassle to paritally assemble some cars and have them finished in France? Most likely for tax and/or regulatory purposes. Have a handful of cars homoglated for French assembly, and that opens to door for Chrysler to send more mopar muscle in a land of Le Cars, 2CVs, FIATS and Trevants? Sounds like a plan to me! Imagine what the first family must have felt and seen, chugging along the alps in a two-cylinder 2CV at 45 MPH, to be passed by one of these machines!?

This is what I pulled off the dodgechallenger.co.uk forums...

Now, notice the gold Challenger? Its not French because it is white! It does have, the unique speedometer in kilometers, and the unique CLEAR lenses that the french cars had as well

Kelly

[IMG]local://upfiles/485/2BE020C6A4DA420E882640F3E82AB132.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/485/19ABA18BD63C4D469F6572026FC28ACD.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/485/734E6F71C93A4E37A25191E198E84B58.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/485/B1627E

 

An international Challenger.....now that is different.

 

It isn't unusual to make European models in Europe. That way they could avoid import tariffs. I would bet that a car like this would have seemed just as premium and special to them as a BMW or Mercedes felt over here.