Attn Vamp: You want this mate.

Look the business.

Rot like you wouldn't believe. Only you can't see it 'cos of the plastic body.

Goes like, well, a very slow thing indeed.

All mouth and no trousers.

With 12 months ticket of course.

Still doesn't stop it being rotted to f*ck under all the plastic.

Once of the Classic mags had one - looked reasonably OK, if a little shed-like due to standing in a dusty barn for a while. Once they got the body off it they found it was more holes than metal. The MOT can only inspect visual structural integrity...... those things can be totally shot whilst still being visually alright for an MOT.

And they're still very slow.

i prefere jap tat not french tat hehe still weird lil car kinda like it, not many 3 seaters haha

There is a lot that can be said about the Murena: for example that you have never owned one. Because a Murena doesn't rot: it was the first Matra which came with a galvanised chassis.

That's about the only thing good about it.

Its predessors, Matra Simca and Bagheera, did rot and streets were littered with broken off body panels. As with all polyester Matra's of 1976-1982 side impact protection was on Lotus standards, read : non-existant.

Well again no. It doesn't handle, waggling the steering wheel twice and it spins. It's the only car I have ever owned which I could be spun without any danger because of the very low speed.

The 1.6 engine (ex Simca ) is very prone to overheating, the 2.2 (Talbot Tagora) isn't much better and it's heavier. They were better -on paper- than the 1.3 of the Bagheera and Bagheera S but the Murena was heavier too.

The 1.6 was advertised at 90Hp, the 2.2 at 122 HP. Must have been French horses because my standard 1.6 refused to go harder tham 180 kph. Got hold of a Simca racing head with an enormous Dellorto-carb and then I got past 230 kph but this required tight hands on the wheel, straight roads and a lot -25 liters /100 km- Super leaded fuel.

The price of fuel was not the issue, but you had to think and plan where your were going: getting stuck with an empty tank was easy. Just about as easy to have a fire with that carb when you tried to start. Sexy: starting with the rear lid open and the missus ready with the fire extinguisher...

What a Murena would need is a 200 HP-Hayabusa engine, some serious vents and a decent suspension. But in those days the Hayabusa was not around.

French in the meaning of no tradition and full of errors. Hell: the French even butchered the Renault Alpine Berlinetta... The Murena was the second car I owned and its credits are that it teached me some humbleness and didn't kill me.

I am still rather fond of the shape but even that the French screwed up when the lights came out, if they came out at all. They worked with underpressure from the carburator and quite often would fall back in half open position. Under the sexy steering wheel (in D-shape)) was a steel cable where you could pull -and keep it stressed- to get home with some lights.

I kept my Murena 12 years, hardly drove it: it was just too miserable. Drove it finally to a wrecker but a cardealer on the other side of the road spotted this. I gave the car away, refused any payment for it, just warned what a shit car it was...

Received however a year later a note with sponsoring for the season ( I got 240 liters racing oil :-) ) from the man: the Murena was all what I said it would be and I was invited to put it on fire. That I refused but we pushed it to the wrecker where finally it met its doom.

Tom De Moor

Three bucket seats. Pure comedy.

Fraser

No they don't. You're thinking Bagheera. Just about the only part on those that's prone to rot are the trailing arms for the rear suspension.

However, the bloke who put in this hideous steering wheel should either be shot or sentenced to drive a Kev'd up Nova. Oh, and the wheels aren't original either.

I'm kinda tempted but I think I'd wait until a 2.2 or 2.2S comes along.

People would point and laugh.

He used to have a Cavalier with Neons.

wrong i had a cav and a neons i never did ever get round to fitting hehe

It's becoming OT but if you kill somebody in Belgium and you get life then most likely you're out after 8 years...

If you don't escape sooner that is.

Tom De Moor

Are Belgian prisons really easy to escape from then?

You must be kidding or live in some remote part of the world where the big Belgian news doesn't reach ;-)

Belgian prisons are notoriously difficult to get in. Well: if you neglect the the time spent in them before your trial starts (which can be years) that is. However if you get sentenced for less than a year, you won't be allowed in, so bugger off and commit some serious crime!

Some -very recent- facts: Murat Kaplan - escaping specialist, hostage taker, major criminal, convicted but also still attending judgement for various crimes- escaped while being on holiday. Yeeah! You read well: in Belgium you get 10 or 15 years prison sentence, there are still some judgements pending but once in a while they let you out on holiday. ;-)

A few weeks ago an inmate switched names with a fellow brother (due for release) and simply walked out. Sure: prisons have fingerprint checking devices but errr the thing wasn't working: not working like not connected, not taken out of the box, the operator on vacantion, etc.

Sometimes criminals -small fish: armed robbery, theft with violence and stuff- have to pay back to the community, so they must work! Very good! Sweeping the jail floors is a fine job. One of them was so good that he got promoted: designated sweeper of the streets around (OUTSIDE) the prison! Under supervison of course...

All right he did, good work, streets so clean you could eat from them (you always can and you will have a big meal), everybody happy and then the guard went in for a piss. ;-) The best was last sunday with the remake of the Great Escape in a jail at Dendermonde: 28 (twenty eight!) went AWOL! Even for Belgium standards this was not little: we are used that every 3-4 weeks that a prisoner evades from jail or get lost somehow but 28!! We are happy now: this must be granted citation in the Guinness Book of Records!

Why the 28 escaped? 4 guards for 200 inmates, wooden doors (the steel celdoors are supposed to cost 7000 UKP *per* door), the locks would be installed next month. Modernisation is promised 5 years ago but -shame o shame- 1.000.000 state servants (on a total force of 5 million) have not yett started, approved, looked at all angles of the problem.

Yeah: we have a Minister of Justice. But hey! That very talented lady will not resign for such wee facts. After all: she wasn't there, was she? She was on holiday, needed to rest, very tired because of negociations with people like Murat Kaplan. Can't blame her, the lass got problems of her own: former husband being big in drugs etc, but now straight and being employed and well paid as an adviser of the Justice departement.

If you don't believe it, it will happen in Belgium! A million in one chance happens every day, in Belgium it happens every f$cking minute!

Back to cars and mods.

Tom De Moor

Top notch. I bet we can beat you on the ridiculously lenient sentencing front though. We have a similar policy of not building any prisons and then deciding to make sentences shorter so they don't fill up as fast.

Or give community service. Don't know if it works in terms of rehab vs. prisons, but it can't work the same way as a deterrent, cleaning up graffiti aint exactly "hard time" is it?