The story of Monica is the story of one man’s dream, a fascinating saga that involved a number of people on both sides of the English Channel. It was the result of an Anglo-French collaboration between Christopher Lawrence and Jean Tastevin and involving a Romanian stylist, an Italian coachbuilder and some American influence.

According to media reports at the time, the Monica was the best luxury sports sedan built. Sadly, world events were to intervene and derail this most promising of projects.

Since the demise of Facel Vega in 1964, the French have been unable to purchase a French luxury car, a grand routier. Germans could choose from Mercedes-Benz and BMW; Italians from Lancia, and to a lesser extent Alfa Romeo and Maserati; and the English were spoiled for choice from Jaguar, Rover and Triumph from their mainstream manufacturers, and Jensen and Bristol from the niche manufacturers.

The best France could offer was the ID/DS Citroen, of which self-made French industrialist Monsieur Jean Tastevin had owned several, as well as the occasional Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, none of which really satisfied him. He was something of an Anglophile—his drive car at the time of Monica was a Jaguar Mark X that he apparently admired greatly. Yet he desired something luxurious, fast and, most important of all, French. The problem for Tastevin was the lack of people within the French automobile industry who had experience and expertise in small-volume engineering and production.

Tastevin was the chairman and managing director of Compagnie Francais de Prodiuts Metallurgiques (CFPM) in the town of Balbigny, 40 miles from Lyon in the Loire valley. Its business was the manufacture of railway rolling stock mainly for the French and German railways. He wanted to diversify, and building a luxury French limousine seemed entirely natural and logical. Paul Frere, Le Mans-winning racing car driver, engineer and motoring journalist, was of the opinion that “the Monica was in reality his personal hobby. He and Madame Tastevin had a lot to do with the shape of the car and the design of its interior.”

Christopher Lawrence had earned quite a reputation in France with his exploits at the wheel of a Morgan sports racing car at Le Mans and his tuning of the Triumph TR (nee Standard Vanguard 2-liter four) engine with his own design cross-flow cylinder head. Following the 1966 London Racing Car Show at which Lawrence’s Deep Sanderson racing car was displayed, Tastevin made contact with him through Jabby Crombac, the French journalist.

As Lawrence recalled, “I received a letter from a company in France that I’d never heard of; it was about five pages long and in French, which I did not read terribly well. So I put it to one side for a time and later asked a friend to translate it. It was then that I realized that this company wanted me to build them 500 engines a year!”

Read more about the Monica
Volume 46 Number 1