La Belle Voiture Francais… The Beautiful French Car

The origins of the aphorism that one drives an Alfa Romeo, is driven in a Rolls-Royce, but gives only a Delage to his favorite mistress remains unknown. The “Car with a Reputation” and “Gained by Performance” were among the firm’s actual slogans; any inference is purely conjecture. In 1905 Louis Delage started his automobile company in Courbevoie on the Seine and within a year he began racing. Victories were many and the firm’s reputation assured. He became obsessed with winning the European Grand Prix Championship, which he did in 1927 by building racecars of milestone design. His dream realized, he closed his race department, sold off his racecars and returned to the manufacture of automobiles.

This Car’s Past

During the current ownership, this Delage has never been publicly displayed at club events, concours, or local shows with the exception of an appearance at the Petersen Museum in the early 2000’s. It was sent to Jim Stranberg of High Mountain Classics for clutch repairs and routine maintenance in 2001-2002 and again in 2013-2014 for a mechanical freshening. The consignor, who has used the car sparingly over the years, describes it as an able over the road performer that runs and performs well. He adds that it has the patina of a nice, quality, older restoration that has mellowed over time. A photocopy of an original DI instruction manual is included with the vehicle.

History of the Model

Very few vehicles are built as hunting wagons, yet it appears that this utilitarian Delage was constructed specifically for just that purpose. It is believed to have been custom-fabricated for a French writer who was an avid hunting enthusiast – to be used at his estates principally for hunting boar. Behind the chauffeur’s compartment is a rear bulkhead which folds down to form a double bed, perhaps used by its owner for an afternoon respite or on overnight expeditions. Window blinds of Whitchurch silk are fitted for privacy and the wide-opening tailgate exposes a toolbox equipped with period tools. Carrosserie Castraise, responsible for the simple but functional coachwork, is certainly among the less ubiquitous coachbuilders of the era. The firm continued in operation into the early 1940’s in Castres, a small city east of Toulouse, France. Some have described the Eight-Lite or Eight-Window body of this vehicle as a shooting brake rather than a limousine; certainly in keeping with the rumored usage by its original owner on his estates in the wine regions of France. The term shooting brake is described in the Illustrated Dictionary of Automobile Body Styles by Lennart W. Haajanen as follows, “A motorized Brake or Station Wagon essentially used for carrying passengers to shoot plus sporting dogs. Later, and with extended usage, the bodywork style and the term Estate Car in Great Britain became generally applied to this type of vehicle. However, Shooting Brake is still sometimes but very purposefully applied to higher class Estate Cars in order to differentiate them from their superficially similar and more mundane brethren” - all of which perfectly describes this unique and certainly unusual Delage. According to Peter Jacobs of the Delage Club in United Kingdom and Jean Lamire, General Secretary of the Amis de Delage in France, it was in the possession of J.L.Riols on February 5, 1965. It was shown at the International Delage gathering in Mougins, October 24-26, 1981 having been entered by Gaston Natoly of L’Isle-sur-Tarn. It was sold in July 1991 by John Tregenza of Hockley, Essex to M.R. Langley, Upminster, Essex, at that time. Other records indicate it was sold to Terry Cohen in the U.K. in 1990 prior to coming into the possession of its current U.S. owner in 1998 at which time it was painted in its current scheme of yellow with black fenders. Interestingly, a photo of the car appears on page 134 of Automobile Quarterly Volume 14 No.2 painted red with black fenders with the ownership attributed to Natoly. One can logically conclude it was painted in the 1990’s during Cohen’s ownership. The current owner purchased the car from Cohen having admired it at Essen, Germany while in his possession.

Summary

As written in Delage – France’s Finest Car by Cabart, Rouxel and Burgess-Wise; the DI was announced on August 8, 1923 to the Delage network… “With immediate effect, it will no longer be possible to accept orders for chassis or cars of our 11-hp DE model.” In fact, this model was being replaced by a new model, the Type DI, “greatly perfected and improved and notably endowed with an entirely new overhead valve engine. The adoption of the more powerful engine was necessary to accommodate larger bodies demanded by clients. Delage informed its agents that the advantage of the overhead valve engine was “the ability to achieve a virtually hemispherical combustion chamber, therefore to keep the largest volume in the smallest space. That is to say that a smaller area in the combustion chamber is in contact with the fuel/air mixture so that the engine will develop a greater output by not wasting the power heating up the cylinder walls, which have decreased in area because the valve pockets disappeared.” In all, 983 examples of DI variants were sold between May 1924 and the end of 1927. Very few are known to exist and this may be the only example extant.
Bill Rothermel, SAH