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...]
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...]