Motoring Weekly's marque articles have covered some of the earlier car companies that have been swallowed up by other manufacturers that are still producing vehicles. This week I am going to talk about Darracq, another pioneer in the European market. Alexandre Darracq founded his car company in 1896. He was a Frenchman of Spanish origins and was an entrepreneur and astute … [Read more...]
Simca
Over the last few years, I have described several European companies that combined or had a touch point with Chrysler and this article describes the foundation for Chrysler in Europe. It is Simca or the Societe Industrielle de Mecanique et de Carroserie Automobile. Founded in 1934 as a new entity, it was the evolution of a 10 year business venture between two Italians, Henri … [Read more...]
Delahaye
The history of Delahaye goes back to the very beginning of the motor industry. Emile Delahaye was a French engineer who bought a factory that manufactured brick kilns and items for the ceramic trade. To help with the industrialisation, he started to work on pumps and engines – both steam and petrol based internal combustion versions. He initially saw this as a way to power his … [Read more...]
Matra
MATRA – Mecanique Avion Traction was founded in 1945 as a defence company with the intention of creating a twin engined plane that was capable of 500mph (800kph). For the first 20 years they concentrated on defence and aeronautics but in the early 1960s they bought Automobiles Rene Bonnet and created Matra Automobiles. Rene Bonnet made very light sports cars and used Matra … [Read more...]
Talbot
I have written a post about the Rootes Group and their acquisition of many companies across a 50 year span. One of these companies was the English piece of Talbot, part of Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq. Talbot was originally founded in 1903 in Britain by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury. He started by importing the French Clement-Bayard cars and selling them as … [Read more...]