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Simca5

1936–1948 France passenger car 13 production years
Production1936–1948
Recorded originFrance
Classpassenger car
Built46,472 units
Background

The Simca 5 is a small Franco-Italian passenger car designed by Fiat engineers at Turin and produced in France by Simca from 1936 to 1948. It was virtually identical to the Fiat 500 Topolino on which it was based, but was first presented, at the company's new Nanterre plant, three months ahead of the Fiat equivalent on 10 March 1936. Production was delayed, however, by a wave of strikes, that accompanied the June 1936 electoral victory of Léon Blum's Popular Front government. The manufacturer boasted at the time of its launch of being ahead of the "plans across the Rhine": this was a reference to the already rumoured launch of the Volkswagen Beetle which would appear only in 1938.

Text adapted from “Simca 5” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗ · retrieved 2026-07

Chronology ledger

Dates with their meaning intact

Production chronology1936–1948

Sourced production or model lifecycle range used by the main catalog timeline.

Wikipedia lead ↗13 years
Netherlands RDW first-admission observations1937–1948

First-admission years observed in Dutch vehicle registrations; this is market evidence, not a worldwide production range.

Netherlands RDW ↗12 years