Up to the early 1970s drivers of the many comfortable cars produced by the Rootes Group had never had it so good – but all that was to change.
The plethora of solid, very British cars in many badge-engineered variations to emerge from a company that was a pillar of the automotive world was to dwindle and this enormous group swallowed in a whirlpool of takeovers and mergers which left fans of names like Hillman and Humber gasping for breath.
The truth was that Rootes was near bankruptcy and Chrysler Europe stepped in to take control and immediately started to rationalise the product lines.
Along with the disastrous events that led to the demise of Rover, I have always classed this move as one of the most fatal nails in the coffin of the British car industry.
Chrysler began to struggle and then sold its European companies, including Simca to Peugeot, which temporarily renamed them Talbot.
Probably one of the best of a rather poor bunch that resulted from all of this was the Talbot Horizon. This actually appeared in France as a Simca in 1978, being a development of the Simca 1100.
Its sales got off to a good start in France and by the time the car was launched in the UK shortly afterwards it looked to have a reasonable future.
It was never ever going to be another Hillman Minx, but it was bright and modern, winning the Car of the Year award in 1979.
Horizons were assembled in the UK at the Ryton plant from 1982 and a number of important fleet orders were secured by Talbot once it was seen as a British-built car.
The range was widened by the introduction of a diesel engined model, the LD, for the 1983 model year, although all the diesel cars were built in France.
Production of Horizons finished in both France and the UK in the summer of 1985, with 842,078 cars built. By the end of 1985 all the limited edition cars had been sold, leaving only the LX listed as being available in 1986.
By June of that year these had been sold and the Horizon waved goodbye. And so ended one of the last links to the Rootes line.
The Horizon was much more a French car than British and is hardly one of the best-remembered products of the Ryton factory.
If anything it was a pointer to future car shapes and design trends, but it could never hold a candle to some of the great Rootes designs is replaced.