Henri Pigozzi

Henri Pigozzi (1898-1964) was a car dealer and automotive industrialist best known as the founder of Simca, the Societe Industrielle de Mecanique et Carrosserie Automobile. Born Enrico Teodoro Pigozzi in Turin, he took charge of a small family transport business at fourteen, sold surplus motorcycles after the First World War and built a scrap steel import trade that brought him to the attention of Giovanni Agnelli of Fiat. In 1926 he became Fiat general representative in France and founded the distributor SAFAF near Paris, which sold about 30,000 Fiat cars between 1928 and 1934. In November 1934 he bought the former Donnet-Zedel works at Nanterre and established Simca there. He ran the company as director general from 1935 to 1954 and as president-director general from 1954 to 1963, when Chrysler, by then the majority shareholder, forced him to resign. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1964.