Seeing as Don Andreina has posted a lot of the special cars that were at this year’s Motorclassica show, but with respect he only scratched the surface. I realise that vintage cars are not CC’s core focus, but there were some pretty interesting cars from the era at the show that I wanted to share such as this 1914 Delage grand prix car that has had its survival helped by some ultra-modern technology.
There were four Type S Delages built for the 1914 French Grand Prix, with double overhead cams, desmodromic valves and a five-speed gearbox so the simple external appearance is deceiving. However the performance at the GP at Lyon was disappointing with the only finishing car in 8th place. World War 1 intervened within the month, before they could be developed further and thus the cars were sold into the United States the following year; one was raced by Barney Oldfield. This car came to Australia in 1922 and competed for many years in the hands of several owners, and is the only one known to have survived.
Photo from the ABC News report linked in the text
While the car was restored by its current owners in the late 1970s, more recently the block cracked on an event. As you can imagine a new engine block for a hundred year-old grand prix car is not something you will find on a shelf and casting a new one would be an enormous task. This is where modern technology in the form of digital scanning and 3D printing came into play. The block was scanned and “repaired” digitally, before the sand moulds were 3D-printed. The block was then cast and machined using traditional methods. The story can be read here, there is also a video. It still wasn’t easy, but a lot easier and cheaper than traditional pattern-making.
This 1920 Model T speedster is very impressive, having existed in this form for at least 40 years. It has been restored a few years back after being imported from California, and does not contain any parts newer than 1926 (presumably including reproductions).
From the large, centrally-mounted spotlight to the Bibendum radiator mascot there are a lot of fascinating details. For example can anyone give insight into the headlight lenses?
The 1924 Lancia Trikappa that was on the Tourclassica run preceding the show bears exploration. The Trikappa was introduced just before the seminal Lambda, but was much more traditional having a conventional chassis (133″ wheelbase). Just 847 were built in roughly three years, and 20 were brought to Australia including two in service with Victoria Police.
The Trikappa’s engine was the first of Lancia’s trademark narrow-angle vee engines, here a 4.6L V8 (280 ci) that made 98 bhp – enough to push the large, heavy car to a top speed of around 80 mph with a 4-speed gearbox. There are just 14° between the banks which are covered by a single cylinder head. I should mention that the 110th anniversary of Lancia is the reason there will be a few cars from that marque featured.
This is one of the last, sold new in Australia in 1925, and its early history is unknown prior to it being unearthed on a rural property in the 1960s. The current owner bought it in 2004 and restored it in time for the 100th anniversary of Lancia when it took part in the Lancia Rally in Turin. Since restoration was done it has been driven more than 85,000 km, or 53,000 miles – looking at the driving position you have to admire the dedication!
What body builders were doing with sedans in the early years is pretty interesting. This 1924 Rolls-Royce has a convertible roof, but solid windows so represents something of a transition. You can see the suicide-hinged driver’s door window, so lets’ take a closer look.
Firstly note the polished aluminium that surrounds the cabin, giving a nautical feel to the car. The side windows look like they can be lifted out, and perhaps the windscreen can be removed too. The upper half of the windscreen opens just in case the side windows don’t scoop enough air in! Actually I don’t imagine you could drive the car like this as the wind would catch the window and blow it backwards.
This 1926 Cadillac 314 has a similar-looking body to the Rolls Royce shown on Tourclassica with a sloping windscreen which makes quite a contrast to the standard bolt-upright type of production bodies that would remain for a good few years yet. This body was built by Fleetwood rather than Brewster, but obviously then as now trends spread across the industry. This is one of 15 different body styles offered by Fleetwood.
A unique idea though was the retractable windscreen! Looking closely you can see how the glass is not mounted in a conventional rubber, but is able to slide down under the cowl. The sun visor disguises its lower top edge.
At the rear, the origin of the name ‘trunk’ can be seen. Incidentally, the term ‘boot’ used in other countries comes from a storage compartment on a horse-drawn carriage. The twin exhausts are because the car has a 5.1-litre V8 engine, which sends 87 bhp through a 3-speed gearbox. Another neat original feature is an onboard air compressor.
There is the phenomenon of vintage cars losing their sedan bodies when being restored, although this 1927 Delage DM lost its original sedan body before it was rediscovered a long time before eventually being restored. This 4-door boat-tail body is unusual and quite beautiful, but comparing it to an actual period body it is perhaps too stylish. Perhaps I can explain it by saying it was clearly built as a one-off rather than something that would be offered as an available style. Does that make sense?
The engine has so many details that illustrate how cars like this pushed the state of the art at the time. Look at the spacing of the six cylinders’ exhaust ports, or the water pump in front of a housing that I can’t guess the purpose of, then the same shaft drives a generator or dynamo and then through to the distributor. The steering box is different from those I’ve seen, and above that I can only guess is the horn?
This 1924 Delage DISS incredibly retains its original body! From this angle it has fewer styling flourishes than the previous one, while sharing many elements such as the timber upper deck that extends in front of the windscreen.
From the rear you can see that it doesn’t have straight boards of wood but rather a mirrored timber with a much more unusual grain. A really beautiful car.
This 1927 Lancia Lambda Ballon sedan is interesting because it is a removable sedan roof added on top of the standard open Lambda tourer body, just like a Bronco or early 4Runner! The separation of painted body with leather-covered upper is quite distinct. Note it would not have been vinyl in those years!
A fairly unusual Lambda is this 1927 roadster. The Lambda really is an extraordinary car, and because of Turin’s location between plains and mountains the gearing is such that they do well in hills but can also cruise at 100km/h – very impressive for a 1920’s car.
This 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Super Sports is a proper (or even super!) sports car though, being directly related to the racing cars that did very well in several forms of the sport in the way that was possible back then – both grand prix and sports car events depending if you removed the lights and mud guards. The body on this car was built by Zagato.
Getting more extreme, this 1934 MG Q-Type is a genuinely proper racing car that was in the auction held at the show. The supercharger is mounted ahead of the radiator under a neat cover with the MG badge acting as the air intake. The engine has just 746cc, but could do over 120 mph at Brooklands! This car was sold new in Australia and has had a number of notable owners and drivers. Its value was estimated at AUD$400-440k, but it did not sell.
Another car that was on the Tourclassica run, a 1937 Hudson Terraplane Touring Coupe. The shape of the body is very similar to the Holden “sloper” body as fitted to the different GM brands. I can’t be sure Holden were involved, but it is entirely possible given import laws effectively prohibited bringing in fully-built cars.
The front end is less beautiful, with a funny grille treatment that tries to hide its full width by painting the sides while the centre is chrome. But what a marvellous restoration!
I mentioned in a comment on Don’s post that I missed getting photos of quite a few cars at the show, but I did get one of the overall winner, a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with a fantastic dual-cowl body.
Next time, some of the cars from the club display – here is a preview.
Further Reading:
I absolutely love the attention to every little detail on these early cars.
That’s the 2nd “sloper” car I’ve seen, the other was a Chevy (on BaT?). In both cases, such a beautiful car….but for the ordinary front ends. .
What beauties! Thank you for sharing your photos and captions!
Early electric headlamps were mainly able only to advertise the car’s presence to other road users. To do more than that there just wasn’t enough light available from the low-wattage bulbs, and higher wattage wasn’t possible due to the feeble charging systems, and a patchwork of state laws also constrained wattage and/or candlepower to very low values—in many cases 21 candlepower was the limit on headlight bulbs. To understand what that looks like, an ordinary 1157 or 3157 brake light or turn signal bulb of today, operating in its bright mode, produces 32 candlepower.
Too, the lamps themselves were extremely primitive. The reflectors were almost sort of parabolic, and the science and technique for cost-effectively devising and manufacturing a headlamp lens capable of creating a complex light distribution—a concentrated hot spot to provide seeing distance, some lateral spread light for seeing width, and careful limitation of upward-leftward light to control glare to other drivers, all at the same time—were in their infancy and not yet practically available.
So, the headlamps were basically marker lights, with a bit of light vaguely scattered around in front of the car to aid the driver. So if the lenses were just going to disperse light, there was no real reason not to use the lenses as decorative elements, and that’s what you see on that car.
In the 1920s some science started being applied, and headlamp development began in earnest. The Corning Conaphore was an early result of that effort. The claims made for it in the two ads attached here are laughably extravagant—not much in the way of truth-in-advertising laws at that time, either. And the notion is thoroughly faulty that a lens with such (allegedly) painstaking R&D behind it could do all these marvelous things in front of any of the numerous very different bulb/reflector combinations on the road. But at least they were beginning to think of headlamp lenses as optical components rather than decorations.
Thanks for the very comprehensive answer Daniel, more than what I had hoped for. For pure light output I imagine the large central light with its plain lens would be better.
Other areas like lighthouses had done work on directing light, but I suppose nighttime speeds didn’t demand much lighting for a while – some “chicken and egg” effect no doubt.
A related point: The Sealed Beam headlight was a huge advance compared to all that mess, which was the original rationale of lighting laws mandating sealed-beam headlights. The perils of mandating a specific technology rather than a desired effect…
Yes and also not keeping regulations up with technology, both things that have echoes today.
And here is a pic of an actual Corning Conaphore headlamp lens on something or other. I took this photo in 2006 at a vintage tractors-and-trucks show in North Dakota. This yellow lens is the “Noviol” variety mentioned in the two ads above.
Very attractive photos John. The cars and setting radiate elegance.
Thanks John, this really old stuff is simply fascinating. I love looking at all the ways they figured out how to do things.
That Terraplane is absolutely beautiful. Always really liked those cars, never did see many of them at the shows I made. I wonder if it’s one of the models that had the Bendix Electric Hand shifter, an electric pre-selector shifter like the one in the Cord of the same vintage, only three speed compared to the Cord’s four.
I’m with you on the Terraplane. (Which sounds either slightly naughty or like an ad slogan, but you know what I mean). Quite lovely.
What beautiful cars. Thank you for this write up. That 1914 Peugeot was so far ahead of its time in so many ways… but the one I want is that 1924 Boat-tail Delage…..
Yes there must have been at least half a dozen other manufacturers copy the twin cam engine within two years.
Those three Delages are mouthwatering. The repro boat-tail is exceptionally good, and I don’t reckon it’s too stylish. Delages were upmarket, exxy cars. I wouldn’t mind betting it was based on something from the era. However, the original boat-tail is an ornament, so good I’d be too scared to drive it!
Fancy Vic Police getting round in a 1924 V8 Lancia. Which commander in their right mind ordered a very expensive Italian chassis for cop work? No wonder half the force went on strike in late 1923, largely over bad management. It would be like a Commissioner today saying they’d ordered an Aventador for evaluation purposes as a patrol car.
Great photos, thankyou John.
Maybe too stylish is the wrong term, but I wonder if a body like that would have been built in period.
I wonder how the Lancia cost compared to something comparable? I found a story on the cars, which were the first cars used by the police with an onboard radio that stated the were destroyed “in a few years when worn out” so that a criminal gang couldn’t use them to impersonate police. Not a cost saving measure! There were 2 photos and the cars don’t appear to have any police identification other than the radio antenna.
You’re right, it may well be that a rare, luxury Italian chassis was possibly cheaper than anything else US that was “high powered”, like a Caddy, but still far from cheap. I say high powered because there’s an extract on Trove from The Argus in 1924 with a picture of a bank robbed in Canterbury and specific mention is made of the “high powered” police Lancia parked there. (It’s a terrible pic, btw). Any car that could do 130km/h and had 4 wheel braking (of sorts) was a rarity outside of snappy little Euro racers, and these things were large. With radio, like a secret weapon for the coppers I suppose: the crooks were doubtless aghast at the speed with which four or more burly plods suddenly appeared.
But then they bloody destroyed the things, gawd spare me days…
Here is a picture from the Vic Police museum. Note the police dog too, I gather it was early days for the use of dogs as well as radio.
I love the Delage Grand Prix car and The T Ford speedster, The idea of a stripped down 2 seater car with minimal body work really appeals.
Regarding cars losing their sedan body work, back in the day in Australia it was quite common for cars and even large expensive cars to be converted, sometimes crudely into utes or farm hacks and even tow trucks.
Of course it must be tempting to build something of a more sporting nature, rather than restoring a sedan.
Undoubtedly the reason why some of these cars needed new bodies. When 10 years old (or less) and worth little some of the big powerful 1920s cars would have been stronger than some 1930s trucks.
Now that you mention this, I have a vague recollection that one of the police Lancias might have been used as a tow in Melbourne, I think there was a story about it retrieving a car or truck that had gone down the embankment to the railway at the bottom of Exhibition or Russell Streets.
Outstanding vintage iron there! The housing on the ’27 Delage boat tail engine is most likely for a geared PTO which drives the water pump, distributor and generator. My ’25 Dodge has a similar looking housing that does duty for the water pump, distributor and fan.
Thanks Mike, that must be it. More reliable way to drive all those items than the riveted leather belt that you see on cars and other machinery of that age.