Museum Classic: 1939 Delage D8-120 Roadster by Figoni & Falaschi – Straight Eight, Curvy Everything Else

NSFW warning: our little journey through the ‘30s will now take a turn for the erotic, if not outright pornographic. I mean, can you look at this delicious Delage D8 in all its bulbous forms and chrome-enlaced gorgeousness and not be aroused?

Don’t answer that. Let us take a mental cold shower, collect our thoughts, replace them with cleaner ones and move on. For this blue beauty’s appeal is not only skin deep. We will spend quite a bit of time ogling that skin, of course, but it’s also a significant representative of a long gone species, large coachbuilt French sports cars.

“Large” in this instance refers especially to our Delage’s engine cylinder count and capacity. The D8 model was first seen in 1929, at a time when 8-cyl. fever was high in Europe in general and in France in particular: at the Paris Auto Show that October, there were about 25 different chassis sporting a straight-8. The Delage D8 became one of the darlings of the concours d’élégance crowd, though this did not prevent the marque from finding itself in financial hardship. In 1934, Delahaye bought their struggling competitor but kept the D8 at the top of the range regardless.

The Delahaye takeover did not signify that Delage products would carry on unchanged, but compared to what Rolls-Royce did to Bentley, successful though that was, the Parisian firms went about things in a more careful way. Essentially, Delage engines were gradually changed into Delahaye ones: the 4-cyl. Delage switched wholesale to Delahaye blocks, several D6 variants were attempted before a Delahaye-derived 2.7 litre model emerged in 1937 as the marque’s mainstay.

Delage’s 8-cyl. engine had no equivalent, but the block was still changed to Delahaye measurements after the Delage works in Courbevoie were closed in 1935. Thus the new 4.3 litre D8-100 was launched for MY 1936, followed a year later by the spicier D8-120. Said D8-120 evolved into a 4750cc model in 1938, keeping the 120hp rating. Being endowed with a fairly long (365cm) wheelbase, most D8-100 chassis were clad with four-door bodies. The sportier D8-120, on the other hand, made do with a 335cm wheelbase and almost all were two-door.

Add chromed exhausts and a suitably flamboyant body, and you have the makings of a true classic. But which one of the dozen or so prestigious Parisian carrossiers might one pick?

Here’s a sampling of how 1938-39 Delage D8-120 were clad. Clockwise from top left, we have examples by Pourtout, Letourneur & Marchand, Chapron, Saoutchik, De Villars and Vanvooren. All highly reputable artisans, to be sure, but if you wanted something that truly made a statement (and made it loud!), the house you wanted to contact was that of Figoni & Falaschi.

Founded in 1923 by Italian immigrant Giuseppe Figoni (and joined in 1935 by his compatriot and managing director Ovidio Falaschi), F & F was known by the late ‘30s for crafting some of the most daring, voluptuous and elaborate bespoke bodies in the world. They worked on all manner of famous chassis, from Duesenberg to Alfa Romeo. But given they were located just outside Paris, a great many of the chassis they worked on were locally made.

Few carrossier cars were true one-offs – most were made in handfuls and fitted to different chassis with a few cosmetic changes. Our Delage, for instance, had at least one near-identical twin sister using (cheaper) Delahaye 135 MS underpinnings, as we can see above.

Fully enclosing the wheels is a very hard trick to pull off, as it really doesn’t look natural at the best of times. More often than not, it looks just plain weird, like bathtub Nashes. Somehow, thanks to the generous use of chrome trim, the sculpting of the front fenders and the general flow of those lines, in this instance, it actually works.

The interior is more restrained, almost simple. Column shifters were also starting to become popular on this side of the Atlantic. This one is a little special though, as it controls a Cotal electromagnetic gearbox, which gave you four forward ratios and just as many going the other way – all without the need for a clutch.

Figoni & Falaschi carried on practising their art after the war, but the popularity of over-the-top custom-built car bodies was on the wane in those times of austerity. Besides, the chassis were getting scarce as well – after 1945, Delage were pared down to a single 6-cyl. model, which sold in minute quantities. The marque petered out, along with Delahaye, in 1954. Figoni held on thanks to a few Simca-based specials until 1960. But let’s go back to the happy and carefree context of 1938-39, when the D8-120 was among the hottest grandes routières on the market.

French cars were really different back then, weren’t they? To be fair, Hispano were quitting the car game that year, Voisin were circling the drain and had to use a foreign engine (a Graham unit), Renault’s massive Suprastella was barely in production and Bugatti were in a deep financial hole. So this glamorous group would have probably have been a lot smaller in the ‘40s, no matter how 1939 ended.

I have not been able to find production data for the 1938-39 Delage D8-120 chassis – we’re probably looking at about 100-150 cars, at most. It was a pure prestige project from its maker’s point of view, and about to be upstaged by the V12-powered Delahaye 165, to be launched at the 1940 Paris Auto Show that never was. Perhaps the straight-8 Delage was on borrowed time. Bespoke bodies were never going to last anyway, so cars like this D8 were not a sustainable proposition in the long run. At least, they existed for a while and a few have survived to dazzle our jaded 21^st Century senses. I’ll stop now, or I’ll be going NSFW again.