Meet The Owner – Callum Cubbage and his Talbot-Matra Murena

For many years, I thought my father’s gold Talbot-Matra Murena 1.6 was one of the most unusual cars he had ever owned. Certainly, no one else in our village had decided to invest in an LHD three-seater mid-engine coupe. So, imagine my delight in seeing Callum’s example. He remarks: “This car is totally original apart from the replacement engine. It’s far from perfect - a bit of ‘patina’, I think is the term – but it still has the stickers from the garage in Belgium”.

Talbot launched the Murena at the 1980 Paris Motor Show, and in the following year, none other than L. J. K. Setright referred to it as “Murena the Marvellous” in Car. The great writer also found it:

better than the basic Porsche 924, every bit as good as the Lancia Monte Carlo, and losing only in sheer agility to the Fiat X1/9, while it shows up the Porsche 911 as ill-balanced and inept.

This was praise indeed, while your friendly local dealer could boast that the Murena’s drag coefficient of 0.328 was the lowest in the world for a mass-production mid-engine production car. In addition, the fully galvanised steel chassis was a ‘first’ in a production car and would hopefully prevent the Murena from suffering the corrosion problems of its Bagheera predecessor.

Callum’s Murena has the Talbot Solara’s 1,592cc engine; the 2,156cc plant from the Tagora was an option. The Telegraph found it “remarkably quiet for a sports machine and feels superbly well balanced”. But they warned the Murena was “expected to be relatively expensive if bought to Britain, probably not much under £10,000”.

Talbot UK apparently thought that 150 Murenas would cover the cost of an RHD conversion, but the management at the parent Peugeot SA disagreed. Production ended in July 1983 after 10,680 units - some 250 are believed to have made their way to this country. Today, Callum finds, “People don’t have a clue what it is! But if you mention the engine from Talbot Alpine, then the usual comments are about noise etc.”.

Callum came by his Murena circa 2004:

I found out about it being for sale around 2004 in Oxford. It had a seized engine due to a fire, so I made a deal. It is very nice now, with a new head, ancillaries, and engine. It has probably only done 10,000 miles now. My Murena was plagued for years with intermittent idling due to worn jets and the decomposing of the original air filter. I’ve done a lot of work on it.

And Callum almost certainly has never made the remark once uttered by my father – “I forgot it did not have power steering”.

With Thanks To: Callum Cubbage