In America, in the early days of the space program, the expected astronaut car was a Corvette. Six out of the seven original Mercury astronauts drove Corvettes! The lone holdout was John Glenn, who drove, of all things, an NSU Prinz. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, we know of at least one good sports car analogue to the Corvette: the Matra Djet. The first man in space, seen above and colorized up there, drove one of these, and they’re really incredible little cars. Yuri Gagarin, the cosmonaut we’re talking about, was given his Djet by the government of France in 1965. So let’s talk a bit about Matra Djets.
First, they are named after a jet, it’s just that in France no one can pronounce a “J” unless you give them a “D” to get the process started with, so it’s Djet, which honestly just makes it look even cooler. The car was designed by René Bonnet and built by that firm from 1962 to 1964, using the 1100cc/65 horsepower (some say 72?) engine from a Renault 8. When Bonnet got in financial trouble, Matra, who had already been building much of the car for Bonnet, took over, made some slight modifications and built the car in various versions from 1965 to 1967, including one with a 1255cc engine from the Renault 8 Gordini that made a screaming 105 hp. Those may sound like small numbers today, but these cars were quick for the era!
They were also mid-engined, set up like an actual racing car, as Matra liked to show in their brochures:
I always like when carmakers do that superimposition of a racing car into their street cars, it’s just fun. The Djet is one of those cars that is full of fantastic little details and has a peculiar sleekness with just a touch of awkwardness that somehow just makes the whole package that much more appealing. Maybe it’s the Frenchness. In the case of the Djet, I think it’s the high ride height and skinny tires that really add to the odd and appealing character.
Oh, also, these had a removable roof panel, but if you actually removed it and drove around, the airflow going into the roof was enough that it could pop out the rear window glass! So, how did Matra solve this problem? Did they re-engineer the aerodynamics of the car? Did they add some sort of ventilation system to reduce the air pressure? Nope!
They just included some little standoffs so when you had the roof off, you couldn’t close the hatch all the way, giving the air a convenient out. That’s it! Good enough, right? I love it. I actually got to drive a Djet once, and I show the hatch standoffs in this video, if you’re curious:
Ah the charm of the Djet! I’m smitten! Smitten, I tell you!
I think those rear hatch props are a brilliant but janky solution considering that flow-through ventilation may be a no-brainer to us now but it wouldn’t even exist for another few years.
It calls to mind the GM pickup bumper side steps, a simple and elegant quick fix when the true solution – build the whole truck a foot lower in the first place – is something Marketing would raise holy hell about.
Oh man, I’d take that quirky Djet over a corvette any day! What a cool little car!
105hp in that thing sounds like a fun time to me, yeah.
Oh man, I’d take that quirky Djet over a corvette any day! What a cool little car!
105hp in that thing sounds like a fun time to me, yeah.
it’s just that in France no one can pronounce a “J” unless you give them a “D” to get the process started with
Oddly enough I had a conversation with my 9 year old about how the letter “J” is pronounced in Swedish because of the “hej” at the entrance to IKEA. I then told her that it is pronounced like an “h” in some languages, like a “y” in others, and then there’s the french one, but I couldn’t think of another language that uses the “j” to make the same sound as in English. Anyway, “J”s are weird, (sorry Jason).
Hej Jason – Have you driven your little Jeep to La Jolla?
Jean-Claude Jeuvet drove his Djet to meet Jeff Johnson with his Javelin, but just missed seeing Johann Jungmann riding his rare 1.5 hp Juhö Motorcycle and Juan Jurado with his Jimenez Novia.
it’s just that in France no one can pronounce a “J” unless you give them a “D” to get the process started with
Oddly enough I had a conversation with my 9 year old about how the letter “J” is pronounced in Swedish because of the “hej” at the entrance to IKEA. I then told her that it is pronounced like an “h” in some languages, like a “y” in others, and then there’s the french one, but I couldn’t think of another language that uses the “j” to make the same sound as in English. Anyway, “J”s are weird, (sorry Jason).
Hej Jason – Have you driven your little Jeep to La Jolla?
Jean-Claude Jeuvet drove his Djet to meet Jeff Johnson with his Javelin, but just missed seeing Johann Jungmann riding his rare 1.5 hp Juhö Motorcycle and Juan Jurado with his Jimenez Novia.
If you gave me 10 guesses for where a car called the Djet came from, none of them would be France. I’d guess every former Yugoslavian republic and then Uzbekistan as a Hail Mary.
If you gave me 10 guesses for where a car called the Djet came from, none of them would be France. I’d guess every former Yugoslavian republic and then Uzbekistan as a Hail Mary.
A Soviet corvette? Now that’s something I gotta ride.
A Soviet corvette? Now that’s something I gotta ride.
Cool story here – I bought a ’63 Corvair Monza 900 convertible in 2003. I joined our local Corvair club and started diving into my Corvair, only to find out it was mostly rust and bondo. The club helped me part it out and helped me find a better Corvair – a 1965 Monza convertible. The club president had bought it and another Corvair as a pair and sold the one he didn’t want. I enjoyed that Corvair, but the story is the one he kept for himself. It was a 1964 Monza 900 convertible (Corvair enthusiasts love the ’64 because it was the last of the first generation Corvair and the transverse leaf spring added that year corrected its suspension issues). This particular one had documentation of its original owner – John Glenn.
Did John Glenn ever drive it around? No idea. Did John Glenn actually want a Corvair? Not sure – I think carmakers did their best to make sure astronauts had their cars in the 1960s, so this one may have been gifted to Glenn by GM. Either way, he didn’t just have an NSU Prinz… he also had the car it copied.
Or was it John Glen ?
If it was that light green number, Glenn owned it for about 2 years and used it as his runaround for errands and commuting while still working in Houston, so he didn’t have it too long, but did put some miles on it
I seem to remember it being a light tan, but that could have been a green, so it’s possible that’s the car.
Edit – just looked the owner up on Facebook. He’s got it completely restored now. Yes, it’s green. That’s the one.
Cool story here – I bought a ’63 Corvair Monza 900 convertible in 2003. I joined our local Corvair club and started diving into my Corvair, only to find out it was mostly rust and bondo. The club helped me part it out and helped me find a better Corvair – a 1965 Monza convertible. The club president had bought it and another Corvair as a pair and sold the one he didn’t want. I enjoyed that Corvair, but the story is the one he kept for himself. It was a 1964 Monza 900 convertible (Corvair enthusiasts love the ’64 because it was the last of the first generation Corvair and the transverse leaf spring added that year corrected its suspension issues). This particular one had documentation of its original owner – John Glenn.
Did John Glenn ever drive it around? No idea. Did John Glenn actually want a Corvair? Not sure – I think carmakers did their best to make sure astronauts had their cars in the 1960s, so this one may have been gifted to Glenn by GM. Either way, he didn’t just have an NSU Prinz… he also had the car it copied.
Or was it John Glen ?
If it was that light green number, Glenn owned it for about 2 years and used it as his runaround for errands and commuting while still working in Houston, so he didn’t have it too long, but did put some miles on it
I seem to remember it being a light tan, but that could have been a green, so it’s possible that’s the car.
Edit – just looked the owner up on Facebook. He’s got it completely restored now. Yes, it’s green. That’s the one.
By 1966, it was determined that the French were cosmopolitan enough to know what a jet was; the car was called the Matra Jet for the last few years.
By 1966, it was determined that the French were cosmopolitan enough to know what a jet was; the car was called the Matra Jet for the last few years.
What the Djet really needed was the Corvette’s engine, without growing in size or adding more drag.
THEN you’d have a proper Cosmonauts Corvette for the era.
The Djet had a Cd value of 0.29, and a relatively tiny frontal area. Corvette didn’t catch up to that Cd value until the C5, which still has a much larger frontal area than the Djet, and the C5 was more than a half ton heavier than the Djet.
Consider that a C5 with its pushrod V8 can eek out 30 mpg at 70 mph. As a platform, the Djet will be about 2/3 as energy hungry overall, so with the C5’s engine shoehorned into a Djet, 40-45 mpg should be possible, nevermind being much more hoonable than a C5.
I’ll be honest, I was expecting you to be well-aware of what light vehicles can do in terms of driving dynamics, even with tiny engines. While I’ve never driven a Matra (D)Jet, I’ve driven plenty of old, very light European cars with small displacement engines, and based on my other experiences, the Matra with the 105HP Gordini engines would probably give you hypercar feels, and likely spank any Corvette of that era on any road that has any kind of bends in it.
If you can find yourself a drive in an Abarth 695SS from the 60’s you’ll be absolutely amazed what 38HP from a tiny 690cc 2-cylinder could feel like.
I’m aware of what small horsepower can feel like in a light vehicle. I own a Triumph GT6.
I also built a 91 lb trike/microcar/”bicycle” thing with 13 electric horsepower in it. It took a V6 Charger in a stoplight drag race last year, at least to about 30-35 mph. It is being upgraded to AWD and 30+ horsepower, because I want to troll Hellcats.
I don’t think the Soviets would be cool with importing an American V8 for that purpose, but, what about the 5.5L ZMZ-13 V8 out of the M13 Chaika? Likely on the heavy side, and only 220hp, but, would be better PR. If you want to go nuts, the 6.0L V8 in the ZiL 111 had aluminum heads for a bit of weight savings and would likely make the same power with better carburation and a less restrictive exhaust
What the Djet really needed was the Corvette’s engine, without growing in size or adding more drag.
THEN you’d have a proper Cosmonauts Corvette for the era.
The Djet had a Cd value of 0.29, and a relatively tiny frontal area. Corvette didn’t catch up to that Cd value until the C5, which still has a much larger frontal area than the Djet, and the C5 was more than a half ton heavier than the Djet.
Consider that a C5 with its pushrod V8 can eek out 30 mpg at 70 mph. As a platform, the Djet will be about 2/3 as energy hungry overall, so with the C5’s engine shoehorned into a Djet, 40-45 mpg should be possible, nevermind being much more hoonable than a C5.
I’ll be honest, I was expecting you to be well-aware of what light vehicles can do in terms of driving dynamics, even with tiny engines. While I’ve never driven a Matra (D)Jet, I’ve driven plenty of old, very light European cars with small displacement engines, and based on my other experiences, the Matra with the 105HP Gordini engines would probably give you hypercar feels, and likely spank any Corvette of that era on any road that has any kind of bends in it.
If you can find yourself a drive in an Abarth 695SS from the 60’s you’ll be absolutely amazed what 38HP from a tiny 690cc 2-cylinder could feel like.
I’m aware of what small horsepower can feel like in a light vehicle. I own a Triumph GT6.
I also built a 91 lb trike/microcar/”bicycle” thing with 13 electric horsepower in it. It took a V6 Charger in a stoplight drag race last year, at least to about 30-35 mph. It is being upgraded to AWD and 30+ horsepower, because I want to troll Hellcats.
I don’t think the Soviets would be cool with importing an American V8 for that purpose, but, what about the 5.5L ZMZ-13 V8 out of the M13 Chaika? Likely on the heavy side, and only 220hp, but, would be better PR. If you want to go nuts, the 6.0L V8 in the ZiL 111 had aluminum heads for a bit of weight savings and would likely make the same power with better carburation and a less restrictive exhaust
“Ah the charm of the Djet! I’m smitten! Smitten, I tell you!”
So would you say “Je t’aime Djet”?
“Ah the charm of the Djet! I’m smitten! Smitten, I tell you!”
So would you say “Je t’aime Djet”?
Yuri Gagarin’s Djet was a gift from Charles de Gaulle.
Yuri Gagarin’s Djet was a gift from Charles de Gaulle.
Say, Autopians, have you seen it yet
Oh, but it’s so spaced out,
René and his Djet
Oh, but it’s weird and it’s wonderful
Oh, René he’s really keen
It’s got a pop off roof and stand-off boot
You know I heard it from Torchinsky,
oh, yeah
René and his Djet
Shouldn’t this be Yuri and his Djet?
In my head I pronounced it Rennie and the Djet.
I mean, where do you get a mohair suit anyway?
1950.
Say, Autopians, have you seen it yet
Oh, but it’s so spaced out,
René and his Djet
Oh, but it’s weird and it’s wonderful
Oh, René he’s really keen
It’s got a pop off roof and stand-off boot
You know I heard it from Torchinsky,
oh, yeah
René and his Djet
Shouldn’t this be Yuri and his Djet?
In my head I pronounced it Rennie and the Djet.
I mean, where do you get a mohair suit anyway?
1950.
A beautiful car long stored deep in the folds of my reptile brain. The want is strong, but so are the asking prices of $27,000 to $40,000.
A beautiful car long stored deep in the folds of my reptile brain. The want is strong, but so are the asking prices of $27,000 to $40,000.