Elegant coachwork by figoni et Falaschi seen to great effect in this aerial shot .Huge completely enclosed tenders and swoopy bodywork characterise the designs of the 'streamline'decade.

As mentioned earlier, the Delahaye 135 you see on these pages has coachwork done by celebrated French coach builders Figoni & Falaschi. Back in the second half of the 1930s research of streamlined shapes had become an obsession with coach builders, with the aircraft becoming the only authorised reference in terms of style and design. New shapes, forms and designs came in to being in this period and whether debatable or not, there are strong reasons to believe that had the French artists continue to stun with these magnificent shapes, their doors wouldn't have been shut today. The 'streamline decade' which began in the year after the 1929 crisis had a purification mission but there were always ambiguities in the interpretation.

When the excellent rolling chassis of the Delahaye 135 came out in 1935, numerous French coach builders went to work creating magnificent body styles. But perhaps the best of these body styles was created by Figoni & Falaschi.

Giuseppe Figoni arrived as a child in France from Italy and choose a workshop as his first training. Closing following the advances made the pioneers of aviation, Bleriot and Farman notably, he soon acquired heaps of original ideas on what had not yet to be been termed as 'streamlined'. Success did not take too long in coming and by 1930 he had worked on the most prestigious of frames like Hispano-Suiza, Bugatti, Duesenberg and the Delage D8. Figoni was closely associated with the renaissance of both Delahaye and Talbot, giving them a new sporting image. In 1935 another Italian Ovidio Falaschi joined in with Figoni and infused capital and management talents, forming the Figoni et Falaschi establishment. These Italians settled in Paris gave a very personal look to their creations with a delicious mix of streamlined proportions allied to Italian design flair. In fact the Delahaye 135 displayed at the 1936 Paris Auto Show had body work by Figoni & Falaschi penned by French artist Geo Ham. The body had fully enclosed fenders front and rear, a dorsal fin running down the centre of the tapering rear section and a belt line that dips considerably just aft of the doors.

The type 103 engine was originally designed for truck and displaced 3.2 litres,later bored out to 3.5 litres in the 135MS to develop 130 bhp. Seen here is the engine bay,the six cylinders breathing through three carbs.The engine still runs beautifully though it needs new rings while carbs are ford,not solex items

I was privileged to be driven around Jodhpur in the Delahaye and what an experience it was! Starting the car requires the usual mixture setting and timing retarding that most cars of this era need. The car also has a separate ignition switch and once fired, the engine slowly rumbles into life, settling into a lovely (and lazy) thrum with a delicious intake slurp as the six cylinders breathe through three single downdraft carburettors.
Incidentally this Delahaye is the Type 135 MS (Modified Special) that was specially developed for racing applications though the Solex carbs have been replaced by Ford items. In this form the engine was bored out to 3557cc and developed 130bhp. In its heyday, the 1400kg car was clocked at a top speed of 155kmph, impressive in a car manufactured way back in 1939.

The complex Cotal electro-mechanical gearbox is another novelty, necessitating the engagement of the clutch only for slotting her into first. A simple flick of the gear lever and the clutch engaged and gears engaged electrically. In fact the gear lever, housed on a stalk on the steering column is as tiny as one of those toggle switches found on ancient transistors! The transmission has four gears in forward and indentical ratios in in reverse, a lever under the dashboard selects forward and reverse gears.
Out on the open road, the Delahaye is brilliant to drive with a superb ride quality, the independent front suspension swallowing even large speed-breakers without ruffle. Turn of speed is also quite impressive while the Cotal gearbox makes shifting a breeze, though the tremendous flexibility of the engine doesn't necessitate many shifts. The engine turns over lazily, max power being developed at an unhurried 3800rpm. The brakes though reveal her age, operating in a lazy and unhurried fashion.

The Type 135 had a long and illustrious history and though during the Second World War Delahaye shifted production to trucks, the Type 135 went back into production after the war, continuing till 1952. In 1951 the only Delahaye model was the Type 235, an updated 135 with 152bhp and up-to-date slab-sided bodywork made by Antem and Letourneur at Marchand. Some of the finest coach builders built bodies on the 135 chassis and today the elegance of those luxurious tourers is respected as much as the performance of the racing versions.

As for the Delahaye company, car sales dropped drastically due to the French government's punitive taxation against large engines - from 483 in 1950 to 77 in 1951 to only three in 1953. In 1954 Delahaye merged with Hotchkiss and the last Delahaye trucks were made two years later. Not long afterwards the new company was taken over by the Brandt organisation and renamed Hotchkiss-Brandt, and the honoured name of Delahaye was dropped altogether after 1956. The site of the Delahaye workshops now houses the Paris National School for Biology and Chemistry where a plaque reads: "Here stood, from 1898 to 1954, the DELAHAYE Workshops, world-wide famous. With its record of motor racing achievements, DELAHAYE contributed to the prestige of the French Automobile."

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