Darracq

Born in Bordeaux of Basque parents, Alexander Darracq sprang to notice when in partnership with one Aucoc, he founded the Gladiator cycle company, selling out to a British combine five years later.

His first motor cars were electric cabs, but the design was dismissed as "worthless", and he turned to the manufacture of tricycles and quadricycles, then spent $10,000 on the acquisition of Lion Bolle's patents, and turned out a horrid belt-drive machine called the Darracq-Bolle.

A neat voiturette appeared in 1900 this 6 1/2 hp single being quickly followed by two- and four-cylinder models, which in 1904 acquired Darracq's distinctive chassis, pressed, together with its undershield, from a single sheet of steel. British capital reformed the company in 1905, and thereafter a complex range was available, from a 1039cc 8 hp single to an 8143cc 50/60 hp six. Disastrous fours with Henriod rotary valves appeared in 1912, a 2613cc 15 hp (uprated to 2951cc the next year) and a 3969cc 20 hp: these proved so unreliable that profits dwindled to almost nothing.

M. Darracq quickly decided to retire (he had never really liked cars anyway, could not drive and did not like to be driven) and took a share in the Casino at Deauville. Darracq was taken over by Owen Clegg, who introduced a 1913 range based on his excellent Rover Twelve, with monobloc L-head engines of 2121cc and 2971cc: a 4084cc model was added in 1914. This was used by the French Army during the war, and was joined in 1919 by an advanced sv V8 of 4595cc.

A merger with Sunbeam-Talbot came in 1920, and Darracqs became "Talbots" in France (but were still sold as "Darracqs" or "Talbot-Darracqs" in England until 1939).

(Vintage European Automobiles)