This little glassfibre bodied car was one of the first roadgoing midengined sportscars. It was the product of Rene Bonnet, who until the beginning of the 60'ies had been joined up with Charles Deutz in the Panhard company. (The "B" in "DB" cars stands for Bonnet)
Matra, who at that time had started a profitable business in plastics and glassfibres, delivered the glassfibre-body to Bonnet, who however was far better at building cars than doing business, which sadly ruined his company early on in the sixties - at which time he owed a good deal of money to Matra; who reacted by taking over the company, thereby saving one of France's pearls - the newly developed D'Jet.
When Matra took over in 1963, only 150 D'Jets had been built. Matra embarked on a project to make the Djet suitable for larger scale production, whereby it changed its name slightly from D'Jet to just "Jet". (The apostrophed D' was used to ensure that also the French speaking world would pronounce it like the newly developed aeroplane propulsion system)
The D'Jet was initially powered by a Gordini-tuned 1108 ccm Renault engine mounted just ahead of the rear wheels. This gave the small,light and very aerodynamic (Cv ~ 0.25) car a top speed of 165 km/h. (D'Jet II with its slightly higher tuned engine did 190 km/h)
The car was produced until 1968 (called "D'Jet 5" "D'Jet 5S" and eventually Matra "Jet6" ) , where Matra replaced it with the M530.
A total number of 1681 cars were built - making it a very rare (but pleasant) sight nowadays.
Shown are some examples, one at the Christies auction during Interclassics earlier this year and two of them participating in the 2005 Tour Auto
Last edited by henk4; 10-30-2005 at 10:38 AM.
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