The manly
Antonio Lago was a man of exquisite taste. This is evident not only from his designs, but also from the choice of master tailors who were allowed to lay their hands on his vehicles. Of course, the T150 and Figoni & Falaschi ‘Goutte d’Eau’ come to mind first, but beauty was also an inner need for his post-war models, primarily the T26 Grand Sport. Of course, the customer could choose herself, but after World War 2, the selection of coachbuilders was no longer as large as it was in the 1930s, with practically all manufacturers also offering bodywork ex works. Lago did not officially do this, but if the buyer could not quite decide, the boss recommended the Dubos brothers, and then Carlo Delaisse. What we see here with chassis number #110102 is a Delaisse design, but rather simple, yet at the same time masculine – which perfectly matched the T26’s 4.5-litre inline-six engine, which was somehow a racing car in disguise. Now, we just think of it as beautiful. Incidentally, you can find the full story of the T26 Grand Sport and a small collection: here.
Chassis-Nummer: T26GS110102
Auktion: Broad Arrow, Villa d’Este 2025, Schätzpreis 1,2 bis 1,5 Millionen Euro, mit diesen Informationen: «The Dubos Frères Coupe is regarded as the body style that was sanctioned personally by Anthony Lago. It was designed by Carlo Delaisse, a well-known freelance designer who had created bodies for the great coachbuilders Vanvooren, Franay, Chapron, and Letourneur et Marchand. For this reason, it was the Dubos Frères Coupe that was depicted in the 1948 Talbot factory brochure, illustrated with an imaginative charcoal drawing by the famous illustrator Piet Olyslager, as the first body was yet to be built. T26 Grand Sport chassis 110102 was delivered to its first owner, a certain Mr. Wight Whiting, on 27 September 1949. The body had been commissioned by Talbot directly from Dubos Frères and was first used for concours showings in Paris in June and July of that year, prior to being sold to Whiting. The chassis received Dubos Frères body number 6162, a number which is visible on the coachbuilder plaque mounted on the inner door sill. 110102 was the second GS by chassis number and received engine, transmission, and rear axle numbers 114 – like Bugatti, Talbot did not match mechanical component numbers to the chassis number. All these original mechanical components are still fitted to chassis 110102.
The Dubos Frères body was finished new in Noir Soudée, a black nitrocellulose shade, with a lighter interior in piped leather. This interior is believed to have been red, and that is how it is finished today. Chassis 110102 made its first public appearance at the Concours d’Élégance du Bois de Boulogne which took place on 23 June 1949. The car was not registered and wore number 3931-WO, a dealer plate belonging to Talbot. It was there shown by Madame Marc Soudée, née Françoise Guerlain, and won a Grand Prix, namely the Coupe Parfums Carven. Monsieur Soudée was president of the company that bore his name and supplied paint to Dubos Frères. The concours win was publicized in the July 1949 issue of l’Equipment Automobile, while the Soudée paint company ran ads in the newspaper Le Figaro. The April 1950 issue of Road & Track featured an image of 110102 taken by the legendary car dealer Roger Barlow of International Motors in Hollywood, California. The photo was taken in California as it showed Barlow’s wife Louise behind the wheel. Given the deadline for delivering photographs to a magazine, 110102 is likely to have been on the West Coast of the USA as early as December 1949 or January 1950. Factoring in the transit time from France to California, it seems that 110102 was very likely exported shortly after it was sold to Whiting at the end of September 1949. This is supported by the fact that the badge on the hood of 110102 and the chassis plate both read LAGO and not TALBOT, as Lago was used by the factory for chassis that were exported. Since his name is on the production card, it is likely that Whiting imported the car to the USA, although it is evident that he kept 110102 for a very short time.
Barlow sold 110102 to the renowned racing driver and exotic car dealer/importer Otto Zipper, who raced the car, but the year of the transaction is unknown. A colleague and competitor of Barlow as well as a friend of Briggs Cunningham, Otto Zipper operated Precision Motors on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street in Santa Monica. During the 1950s, a number of the most exclusive Delahayes, Bugattis, and Alfa Romeos in the world passed through his hands before he focused his attention on Ferraris in the 1960s. An Austrian immigrant, Zipper was also a personal friend of Tony Lago having previously owned several Lagos including a Pourtout-bodied Teardrop and a GP car. Towards the end of the factory’s life, Zipper ended up with several of the BMW V8-powered Lago Americas as a partial debt settlement from the more or less permanently broke Tony Lago. There is a widely publicized picture, perhaps taken at Laguna Seca, showing Zipper working on 110102. In a handwritten Grand Sport listing made by the late Roland Poncet, the name Schaeffer, USA is listed as a previous owner of 110102. Some years later, 110102 passed to Richard Straman, a well-known Southern California Ferrari restorer. Straman believed that the 8,000 miles shown on the odometer when he acquired it were genuine and that the original tires were still on the car. Straman began a restoration, stripping the car and partially renewing the interior, but did not finish the restoration. On 24 February 1997, he sold 110102 to Jerome Sauls, proprietor of the famous Ritz Garage in Warrington, Pennsylvania. Sauls commissioned a full frame-off restoration, where great effort was made to be correct in every detail. Sauls showed the car at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August 1998. Collector George Howitt from Belgium purchased 110102 in late 2004. In 2005, he showed the car at Rétromobile in Paris after having it refinished to a high standard. Chassis 110102 was purchased by a well-known Talbot-Lago authority in the summer of 2009. This collector has retained the car since and showed the car at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in 2010.»
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