to fit the last batch of cars with Simca's own 2351 cc V8. This engine had its roots in 1930s Detroit, and was originally provided by Ford to give the (then) Ford Vedette produced by their French subsidiary a flavor of the driving experience offered by an unstressed US style V8 sedan. It was by no stretch of the imagination an engine for a sports car, and even with a second carburetor produced only , as against the of the BMW-engined cars from the previous year's production. Claimed top speed was now 165 km/h (103 mph) in place of the 200 km/h (124 mph) listed the previous year. At the 1959 Paris Motor Show a stand had been booked for what was by now the Simca-Talbot brand, but a late decision was taken not to exhibit a Lago America and the stand was instead given up to a hastily constructed "motor show special" prototype of which, after the motor show, nothing more would be heard. Commercial and financial Sales data by model were kept confidential, possibly in connection with the company's financial difficulties, but the overall totals for the early 1950s tell a dire story. The Suresnes plant produced 155 cars in 1947, an output which increased by 23 in 1948. 433 cars were produced in 1950, but this then fell to 80 in 1951 and to 34 in 1952. In 1953 it is thought that the company turned out just 13 of the 26CV Record model and 4 of the 15 CV Babys. During the rest of the decade volumes did not recover significantly; no more than 54 of the T14 LS were built in 1955 and 1956. As the company's commercial trajectory implies, the years following the end of the war were marked by the slow financial collapse of Anthony Lago's Talbot company. Other luxury automakers whose glory years had been the 1930s fared no better in the 1940s and 1950s than Talbot, with Delage, Delahaye, Hotchkiss and Bugatti disappearing from the car business while Panhard, nimbly if slightly improbably, reinvented itself as a manufacturer of small fuel efficient cars. Customers with enough money to spend on a luxury car were hard to find, and even among those with sufficient funds, in a country where well into the 1950s the Communists, buoyed by the heroic role played by some of their leaders during the years of Resistance, regularly