X-Nico

13 unusual facts about Matra


Freewing Scorpion

The Scorpion will be offered for a US Army short-range UAV requirement, and is being proposed by Matra of France for use on French navy frigates and patrol boats.

General-purpose bomb

France's GP bombs, marketed by Matra and built by the Société des Ateliers Mécanique de Port-sur-Sambre (SAMP) are made in a variety of types with nominal weights from 50 kg (110 lb) to 1,000 kg (2,205 lb).

Malmö MFI-9

Von Rosen had the planes painted in camouflage colours and fitted with rockets from Matra, and proceeded with a band of friends to form a squadron called Babies of Biafra to strike at the airfields from which the federal Nigerian Air Force launched their attacks against the civilian population in Biafra.

Matra Rancho

The Matra Rancho was a leisure activity vehicle created by the French engineering group Matra, in cooperation with the automaker Simca, to capitalize on the off-road trend started by the Range Rover.

Matra-Cantinieau MC-101

The Matra-Cantinieau MC-101 was an early 1950s French experimental two seat helicopter of conventional tail rotor configuration but with its engine mounted close to the main rotor, above the seating.

Meteosat

The satellites were manufactured by a consortium COSMOS, with Aérospatiale in its Cannes Mandelieu Space Centre, as Prime, and included Matra, MBB, Selenia Spazio, Marconi Company.

The contract for the second generation was awarded to Aérospatiale in its Cannes Mandelieu Space Centre (now Thales Alenia Space), with main subcontractors as Matra, Messerschmitt, Alenia.

Orlyval

Initially it was run privately by Matra, but because construction and operating costs were too high to generate profits it passed to the publicly owned RATP.

Rosa Parks Transit Station

Construction on the Skyway extension began in 1993, and coincided with the system's switch from Matra to Bombardier Transportation technology.

Sound Blaster

This actually stood for Digital Sound Processor, rather than the more common digital signal processor, and was really a simple micro-controller from the Intel MCS-51 family (supplied by Intel and Matra MHS, among others).

Stefani Hid

Stefani Hid also wrote for column about men and sex called Oposit in Indonesia men's magazine Matra.

After the publication of her first novel, she has been written some short stories which has been published in newspapers, magazines and journals: Jurnal Prosa, Koran Tempo, Suara Merdeka, Media Indonesia, Spice! and Matra.

Trimount

The trimount in the Hungarian (and probably Slovak) coat of arms represents three mountain ranges of the Kingdom of Hungary: the Tatra, Fatra, and Mátra.


André Moynet

Moynet was also instrumental in Matra’s move into the automobile business, being responsible for the conception and development in 1968 of a Sports prototype which was developed to achieve a class win (1600–2000 cc) at Le Mans in 1975 (drivers: Michèle Mouton, Marianne Hoepfner and Christine Dacremont)

Canale-di-Verde

Canale-di-Verde is part of the canton of Moïta-Verde, together with 13 other communes: Aléria, Moïta, Ampriani, Campi, Chiatra, Linguizzetta, Matra, Pianello, Pietra-di-Verde, Tallone, Tox, Zalana and Zuani.

Coat of arms of Hungary

The sinister (right side from the viewer's point) consists of an Argent (silver) double cross on Gules (red) base, situated inside a small Or (golden) crown, the crown is placed on the middle heap of three Vert (green) hills, representing the mountain ranges Tátra, Mátra, and Fátra.

Coat of arms of Slovakia

The triple peak represents the three mountain ranges Tatra, Matra and Fatra which symbolized the northern mountainous part of the Kingdom of Hungary.

James Matra

James Matra is remembered in the Sydney suburb of Matraville.

Kálmán Ferenczfalvi

Horváth, László: A gyöngyösi zsidóság története, Mátra Múzeum Gyöngyös, 1999, p.

Matra Djet

Matra also provided the factory where the Djets were built, in Romorantin.

It was considered a great opportunity by Matra's CEO, Jean-Luc Lagardère, to expand Matra's business to the automobile market.

During his 1965 tour to France, Yuri Gagarin was presented with a Matra Bonnet Djet V S coupé by the French government, the car was later photographed wearing Soviet license plates.

Matra Murena

Production of the Matra Murena was discontinued in 1983, when the Matra factory in Romorantin switched to production of the Renault Espace multi-people carrier.

Minivan

A European minivan design was conceived in the late 1970s by the Rootes Group in partnership with the French automaker Matra (which was also affiliated with Simca, the former French subsidiary of the Chrysler Corporation, sold in 1977 to the PSA Group).

Pierre Heymann

Two years later, in 1984 Renault releases its first Espace minivan developed by Matra.

USAF Hunter-Killer

A vague picture released with the announcement showed the Minion to have a certain broad resemblance to various air-launched cruise missiles, such as the Anglo-French Matra-BAe Dynamics APACHE / Storm Shadow or the US AGM-158A Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), which is also built by Lockheed Martin and may have some degree of commonality with the Minion.