| Vintage
automobiles, like fine wine, only get better with age. And when you throw
in a rich history, engineering innovation and racing successes into the
cask, it can only get better. Sirish Chandran profiles the Delahaye car
company and also drives the last remaining Delahaye in the country, the
magnificent 1939 Delahaye 135MS.
As far back as I can remember I have always been drawn to vintage and
classic automobiles and been fascinated by their rich and varied history,
the origins, their founders, designers, coach builders, engineers and
the racers who brought them with glory - even the turn of events that
brought about their tragic and often ignominious decline and death.
The period was heyday for engineering innovations in the period from the
turn of the century to the great wars. Engineers started off by developing
single cylinder machines in their backyards and progressed to massive
16-cylinder machines. Engineering innovation knew no bounds nor limits
and there was no fixed formula for designing a car. Each automobile was
unique in its own special (and sometimes quirky) way and very different
from the rest. And of course, invariably, complete cars were engineered
by a single individual, who stamped his own thought and designs on the
machine.
Coach builders of the time also had a great role to play, developing their
own designs to install on frames built by illustrious manufacturers. Each
model would be available in varied body styles made by different coach
builders, and of course these designers too were not shackled by preconceived
notions. All of which would translate into either whacky or truly breathtaking
body styles, especially designs originating in the streamlined decade.
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Instrumentation
includes the standard speedometer,tachometer marked from 3600rpm to
4600rpm ,ammeter , temperature and fuel gauges. The car also boasts
of an altimeter cum barometer! |
One
such marquee, considered in its heyday to be one of France's finest automobile
manufacturers was Delahaye. The founder of the company, Emile Delahaye,
was one of the pioneers of the dawn of the automobile age in France and
had been a chief engineer of a Franco-Belgian firm that built railway
rolling stock. Around 1890 he took over a machine shop in Tours, specialising
in manufacture of steam, gas and paraffin engines and soon after branched
into gasoline engines.
In 1894 he built his first car, with a rear-mounted horizontal engine,
belt drive and tubular frame and in the following year entered his first
race, the Paris-Marseilles-Paris. The Delahaye machines, one of them driven
by the manufacturer himself, finished the 1700km race seventh and tenth
and helped establish the company's reputation.
Emile Delahaye resigned in 1901 due to ill health but the company that
bore his name continued, moving from Tours in the early years to Paris,
the centre of the French automobile industry and by 1906 was considered
one of the finest motor factories in Europe. The chief engineer at that
time, Charles Weiffenbach took over the running of the firm and guided
the destiny of the company until the end in 1954.
Commercial vehicles were also an important part of the company's production
and two fields in which the firm acquired high respect were those of postal
delivery vans and fire engines. During the First World War, Delahaye's
army trucks became a familiar sight on the Western Front. Motorboat engines
were also made and a boat powered by a 350bhp Delahaye engine took the
world water speed record at Monaco in 1905. |
February
2003