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Delahaye 135 Competition – #47242

Droplet

Born in 1894, the Italian Giuseppe came to Paris at the age of 14 and initially worked as a coachbuilder. After the First World War, he was able to take over a small body shop and soon began working for Bugatti, as well as Duesenberg and, from 1932, Alfa Romeo. But he made a name for himself mainly with his bodies for Delage, with pretty cabriolets and coupes with sweeping lines being his speciality. In 1935, Ovidio Falaschi joined the company primarily as a financier, and the new company not only changed its name but also switched from being a Delage specialist to a Delahaye specialist. In the same year, the Italian French also presented the so-called ‘flowing’ design for the first time, which Figoni & Falaschi saw as an answer to the increasingly conservative shapes in the bodywork of the time. And it was also an answer to the Mercedes-Benz 540K ‘Autobahnkurier’ by Erdmann & Rossi, which was presented in 1934 and was generally regarded as the most beautiful vehicle of its time. In 1936, Figoni went one step further. A Delahaye 135 ordered by the French racing driver Albert Perrot is considered to be the first vehicle with the design that later became famous as the ‘Goutte d’Eau’, water drop, (especially as a body on the Talbot-Lago). But, yes, there were also Delahaye ‘Teardrops’, six examples, of which three are said to still exist. Among them is chassis number #47242, which we are showing here.

The exact designation is Delahaye 135 Competition Court, and it is the chassis with the short wheelbase of 2.65 metres. The racing version of the 3.6-litre inline six-cylinder engine produced at least 160 hp, which was more than remarkable for a vehicle without turbocharging at the time. Figoni & Falaschi is said to have received the naked chassis in September 1936, with the order coming directly from Delahaye. The finished vehicle was then returned to the factory, and it is assumed that #47242 probably served the factory as a demonstration vehicle. During World War 2, it disappeared, like so many other French treasures, and only resurfaced in the 1950s. After that, the Delahaye had several owners, including an American who lived in Paris. He apparently had a problem on one of his trips, because #47242 then disappeared for four decades, only to reappear at the end of the 1990s near Lake Garda in Italy. A restoration was commissioned, ‘by chance; a matching Delahaye racing engine also turned up very close to where it was found; it is now assumed that this is the original engine.

This marvellous Delahaye was sold by RM Sotheby’s in 2013 for 2.42 million dollars. And it is, of course, part of our collection of Delahaye 135s, which we have since added to with further Figoni & Falaschi works. We have more beautiful cars in our archives.

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