Delaunay-Belleville a casualty of war

0 0 May 30, 2025 Edit this post

by Bill Buys

TWO World Wars and economic upheaval did awful things to the motor industry.

There were literally hundreds of different car brands from the early 1900s, most of them, British, French, American and German, going belly-up in the wake of WWI.

Then came the Great Depression, and before the dust had settled WWII fired up.

A few, among them Delaunay-Belleville, survived. But with a bleak post-war economy, the future of the fine French limo was bleak.

Automobiles Delaunay-Belleville was a success from the beginning with its products widely regarded as the most prestigious ever made.

The company, at Saint Denis, north of Paris, was already a well-respected engineering firm, dating from 1850 and headed by Julien Belleville, selling its steam boilers to, among others, the Royal Navy.

In 1867 Louis Delaunay joined the firm, fell in love with Belleville's daughter and before long they were married.

Julien then changed his name to Delaunay-Belleville and succeeded his father-in-law at the helm of the company.

Keen to build luxury cars, he recruited Marius Barbarou, the gifted young Frenchman who had worked for Clément and Benz and built and drove the 11-litre Benz Parsifal racing car, in which he scored a number of successes for himself and his employer.

Barbarou joined the company in 1904 and the first Delaunay-Belleville made its debut at the Paris Salon in December that year.

The new car was an instant hit and was soon considered equal to anything from Daimler, Panhard or Rolls-Royce.

By 1906 the brand was favoured by European nobility, among them the King of Spain, the King of Greece and the Norwegian Royal Family, while Tzar Nicholas II of Russia owned several examples.

The company started with three models, all four-cylinders, a live-axled 16 hp and 24 hp and 40 hp model.

These were likely the first cars to have pressure-lubricated camshafts and the brakes were water-cooled from a 9.0-litre reservoir.

Next, in 1909, it became the first French car maker to offer a six-cylinder engine, known as the Type SMT, or Sa Majesté le Tsar, because Nicholas bought one of the last 70 built -- and ordered another.

A fine feature was its silent starter, operable from the driving seat. It became known as a Barbey starter, and was made standard at the end of 1910.

Like most prestige marques, the cars were sold as bare chassis and bodies were coachbuilt for them.

Between 1906 and 1914, British imports were mainly bodied by Shinnie Brothers, in Aberdeen, then shipped to London for sale.

Postwar, Continental bodies gained popularity as Belgium's D'Ieteren Frères became most associated with the company: their landaulette, on a 26 hp chassis, was priced in Britain at £900, pitting them between Napier and Rolls-Royce.

In 1919, the company offered the P4, a 2.0-litre sidevalve 10 hp four-cylinder, undoubtedly the most expensive voiturette on the market, as well as a 2.6-litre overhead cam 15.9 hp four, the P4B, in 1922. It was a model much admired by W O Bentley.

The P4B was in production from 1922 to 1927.

Characterised by their round radiator and bonnet, most models carried formal coachwork and were chauffeur driven; indeed, rival motor manufacturer Fernand Charron once declared: 'No owner ever drives his Delaunay – it just isn't done.'

Such success made Marius Barbarou a target for other upmarket motoring companies and it wasn’t long before the Lorraine-Dietrich firm lured him to take over as their technical manager.

It was a good move for them, resulting in successive wins at Le Mans in 1926 and ’27.

But things were less than jubilant at Delaunay-Belleville, where Barbarou’s absence soon led to quality problems.

New four-cylinder overhead valve 14/40 and 16/60 models appeared in 1926, and the pre-war 20 hp and 10 hp six-cylinder models continued to be produced until 1927.

By the late 1920s, Delaunay-Belleville had lost much of its prestige and sales dropped.

To survive, the company reverted to truck and military vehicle production, although some cars were still built through the late 1930s and continued after WWII.

They were the Ri-6 models with US Continental engines, a Cotal preselector gearbox, independent suspension all-round and a mish-mash of Euro and US styling.

Six cars were completed in 1947 and only four in 1948.

The company continued to advertise new cars for sale until 1950, but the factory was sold to Robert de Rovin in 1948 who used the old Delaunay-Belleville factories in Saint Denis to build classy cyclecars.

They were called Rovin and were popular in France and neighbouring countries recovering from the ravages of war.

They were easy to park (streetside parking was very tight in Paris), cheap to operate and looked pretty good too.

About 500 of them were built each year from 1946, first with a 260cc engine and later models got a 462cc motor.

The little gems attracted competition from the large manufacturers whose minicars were lower-priced and mass-produced.

Rovin battled valiantly, but eventually closed its doors in 1958.

That’s the humbling story of how chauffeur-driven luxmobiles of royalty ended up as tiny two-seater conveyances.

And Lorraine-Dietrich, despite Barbarou’s brilliance, also fell victim to circumstance, ending car production in 1935 and repurposing its plant to build aircraft engines and producing Czech Tatra trucks under licence.

Engineer/designer/race driver Marius Barbarou died in France in 1956, aged 80.

The names of once revered brands such as Delaunay-Belleville, Lorraine-Dietrich, Minerva, Horch and a dozen others are virtually unknown today and several hundred others also disappeared into oblivion.

Some due to mismanagement, but mostly as the result of wars and their toll on finances.

Some of the Delaunay-Bellvilles did make it to Australia.

They were sold at Perth Motor House, in Hay Street.

The company, located alongside the Royal Theatre, also sold Armstrong-Whitworth and Ford vehicles.

Records show at least three were sold in Perth, one in 1915, another in 1919 and the third in 1924.

Another arrived in Brisbane in 1910 and a 1913 model is in the National Museum of Australia.

New Zealand, however, got one of the first Delaunay-Bellvilles - in 1905.

That car is now said to be the world’s oldest restored example.