In 1958, the American Chrysler Corporation pursued an entry into the European motor manufacturing market by buying 15 per cent of the French Simca company's stock from Ford.

At that time, however, the dominant shareholder remained Fiat of Turin, and their influence remained distinctively apparent in the engineering and design of Simca cars for several years into the early 1960s.

However, in 1963 Chrysler increased its Simca stake to a controlling 64 per cent by purchasing stock from Fiat, subsequently extending that holding to 77 per cent.

Chrysler had no interest in any continuation of the previously successful Simca Abarth and Abarth Simca high-performance car collaboration, which came to a juddering halt.

In Turin Carlo Abarth found himself left more or less high and dry, but the supply of basically Simca 1000 chassis floor pans, upon which the sleek and superfast Abarth Simca 1600s and 2000s had been based, left quite a number in stock, as yet unused.

The popular legend is tha...