Luigi Chinetti and Matra Sports

Dear forum members,

Let me first shortly introduce myself. My name is Robi Rizvic (43) and I live in the Netherlands. I have a great interest in classic cars, especially in the brand Matra Sports/ Matra Automobile.

Maybe you are thinking what’s a Matra guy doing on a Ferrari forum. Well……it has to do with my latest find . Unplanned we I have extended our Matra collection with a Matra Sports Djet 5 from 1967. This Matra Sports Djet was for sale in San Marcos, California. During some research in completing the history of this car I found out that this Djet originally was bought and imported in the USA by Mr. Luigi Chinetti in 1967!. As a matter of fact he bought and imported at that time 4 Djet’s. So there’s the connection with Ferrari.

The selling information i have received from the selling documentation that was archived by Matra in those days. Very imported information and not easily accessible but luckily via my Matra connections in France I managed to obtain this information.

This then made me wonder what and how the link was between Mr. Luigi Chinetti and Matra Sports, because officially Matra’s were never sold in the USA. So I continued to search and then found out that Mr. Francois Sicard before he joined the NART team worked for Matra. The other link that I found was a copy of an American car magazine (1969) where a 2 page article was written about the Matra Sports M530LX, the article ends with: “ for more information on the Matra 530, write to Luigi Chinetti Motors, 780 11th Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019.”

On the Facebook page about mr. Luigi Chinetti I found two pictures where a small part of a blue Djet is shown, but that’s already a Jet 6……However, of the 4 Djet’s that mr. Luigi Chinetti bought “our” Djet was the only blue one.

(https://www.facebook.com/Luigi-Chinetti-203873442961049/photos/?tab=album&album_id=696844680330587)

The previous owner of the Djet has bought it in 1982 at the west coast. He informed me that in the late ‘70’s the car was being sold by an individual named Thor Sutowski . On the internet I could not find anything about this person.

In order to complete the history of my Djet, my question is this…..does anyone maybe has more information about the connection between mr. Luigi Chinetti and Matra Sports? Or does anyone can guide me in the good direction?

Any information or help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance.

Best regards from the Netherlands,


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On this forum I found some more pictures of a Matra Sports Djet in the workshop....

The search continuous and any help would be greatly appreciated

Robi


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Thanks, another piece for the puzzle. So for sale in 1982 in Autoweek, I assume that’s a USA magazine?in the Netherlands we have a magazine with the exact the same name.

 

Thank you for eaction. I found this info in a earlier stage but I am assuming that the number #30.006 is the chassis number??? Mine has 10.538 so I am thinking that’s another Djet. I also contacted miss Guthrie, but she couldn't remember anymore. The only thing she remembered was that the dashboard needed to be adjusted to fit her legs....