Panhard was another manufacturer that was at the very beginning of the automotive industry and were based in France, in fact as you will see, they were associated with many of the leading French brands of the century. Rene Panhard, the son of a saddler and coach-builder, and his associate Emile Levassor founded their company in 1887. They had both worked at a wood-working … [Read more...]
Chenard et Walcker
This small company will forever be in the motor sports history books, thanks to one major race win – the first running of the Le Mans 24 hour race. The company is Chenard et Walcker. The company was founded in France in 1900 by Ernest Chenard and Henri Walcker. Chenard was a railway engineer and like many other formative car builders, he also manufactured bicycles. Walcker … [Read more...]
Delage
This article is about another pioneer in the field of motor sports – the French Delage company. Louis Delage founded his company in 1905 after working for Peugeot for several years. His plan was to act as an assembly plant and he originally designed bodies and bought single and twin cylinder engines from de Dion Bouton to power them and were known as the Type A and Type B. … [Read more...]
Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq
Here on Motoring Weekly we have written about all three parts of this entity and this grouping of marques didn’t last that long in an industry that was hit by the Great Depression of the late 1920s and was constantly evolving with smaller companies either going bust or being gobbled up by larger conglomerates. The three companies had an interesting evolution of their own … [Read more...]
Hispano-Suiza
This week’s history article is about another pioneer of motoring: Hispano-Suiza – translated as Spanish-Swiss, which it sort of was. In 1898, a Spanish Army captain called Emilio de la Cuadra started a company to build electric cars. He met a young Swiss engineer in Paris called Marc Birkigt, who became instrumental in designing cars for the company. In 1902, de la Cuadra … [Read more...]