Hotchkiss automobiles & trucks made between 1903 and 1955 in Paris France

Hotchkiss logo on GS car.

Hubert and Mme Le Blon at the 1906 Targa Florio driving a Hotchkiss 35 hp

1931 Hotchkiss Sports

Hotchkiss 686 produced from 1936 to 1952

1953 Hotchkiss Grégoire

Hotchkiss were lux­ury cars made be­tween 1903 and 1955 by the French com­pany Hotchkiss et Cie in Saint-De­nis, Paris. The badge for the mar­que showed a pair of crossed can­nons, evok­ing the com­pany’s his­tory as an arms man­u­fac­turer.

The com­pany’s first entry into car mak­ing came from or­ders for en­gine com­po­nents such as crank­shafts which were sup­plied to Pan­hard et Lev­as­sor, De Dion-Bou­ton and other pi­o­neer­ing com­pa­nies and in 1903 they went on to make com­plete en­gines. En­cour­aged by two major car dis­trib­u­tors, Mann & Over­ton of Lon­don and Fournier of Paris, Hotchkiss de­cided to start mak­ing their own range of cars and pur­chased a Mer­cedes Sim­plex for in­spi­ra­tion and Georges Terasse, pre­vi­ously of Mors, was taken on as de­signer.

Early cars

The first Hotchkiss car, a 17 CV four-cylin­der model, ap­peared in 1903. The en­gine of the 20 CV type C was heav­ily based on the Mer­cedes Sim­plex ex­cept that wher­ever pos­si­ble it used ball bear­ings rather than plain ones (in­clud­ing the crank­shaft) and ex­cept the Hotchkiss drive. Six-cylin­der mod­els, the types L and O fol­lowed in 1907.

The ball bear­ing en­gines lasted until the 30CV type X of 1910. In that same year Hotchkiss moved into a smaller car mar­ket with the 2212cc type Z.

With the out­break of World War I, the fac­tory turned to war pro­duc­tion and a sub­sidiary plant was opened in Coven­try, Eng­land. Car pro­duc­tion re­sumed in France 1919 with the pre war types AD, AD6, AF and AG. Dur­ing World War I, they pro­duced ma­chine guns and tested them from the fac­tory roof.

Inter war production

After an at­tempt to enter the lux­ury mar­ket with the AK, which did not get be­yond the pro­to­type stage, the com­pany de­cided on a one model pol­icy and in­tro­duced the Coven­try de­signed AM in 1923. Later that year the Coven­try plant was sold to Mor­ris. Henry Mann Ainsworth (1884–1971) and Al­fred Her­bert Wilde (1889 – 1930) who had run it, moved to Paris to be­come gen­eral man­ager and chief en­gi­neer of the car di­vi­sion re­spec­tively.

In 1926 con­struc­tion of the new fac­tory in the Boule­vard Or­nano was com­pleted and in 1929 Hotchkiss got hold of a steel press al­low­ing in-house man­u­fac­ture of steel bod­ies. The one model pol­icy lasted until 1929 when the six-cylin­der AM73 and AM80 mod­els were an­nounced. “73” and “80” stood for the bore of the en­gines used, a nam­ing theme picked up again later in 1936 after a brief hia­tus.

Al­though most cars had bod­ies that were fac­tory built, Hotchkiss still was a lux­ury car brand, and so coach­builder Veth and Sons built a small num­ber of bod­ies for the AM80.

The AM mod­els were re­placed by a new range in 1933 with a new nam­ing sys­tem. The 411 was an 11CV model with four-cylin­der en­gine, the 413 a 13CV four and the 615, 617 and 620 were sim­i­lar six-cylin­der types. The 1936 686, which re­placed the 620, was avail­able as the high-per­for­mance Grand Sport and 1937 Paris-Nice with twin car­bu­ret­tors and these al­lowed Hotchkiss to win the Monte Carlo Rally in 1932, 1933, 1934, 1939, 1949 and 1950. The new nam­ing scheme in­tro­duced in 1936 con­sisted of the num­ber of cylin­ders, fol­lowed by the bore of the en­gine (in mil­lime­tres).

Second World War

The ar­ma­ment side of the com­pany and the body stamp­ing plant were na­tion­alised in 1936 by the Front Pop­u­laire gov­ern­ment. The car com­pany in 1937 took over Amil­car. With re-ar­ma­ment speed­ing up they also started mak­ing mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles and light tanks. When France de­clared war, in Sep­tem­ber 1939, Hotchkiss were sit­ting on an army order for 1,900 H35 and H39 tanks pow­ered by six-cylin­der mo­tors of re­spec­tively 3.5 and 6 litres ca­pac­ity, and at the time of the Ger­man in­va­sion in May 1940 they were still work­ing through the order. How­ever, as the mil­i­tary sit­u­a­tion de­te­ri­o­rated the de­ci­sion was taken, on 20 May 1940, to aban­don the Saint-De­nis plant which by now was fully con­cen­trated on war production. There was a dis­or­derly evac­u­a­tion, ini­tially to­wards Aux­erre and then Moulins and then fur­ther to­wards the south, as em­ploy­ees des­per­ately tried to keep in­for­ma­tion on the mil­i­tary pro­duc­tion out of the hands of the Germans. How­ever, the na­tional ca­pit­u­la­tion im­plicit in the sign­ing of the armistice on 22 June left these ef­forts look­ing some­what ir­rel­e­vant, and most of the em­ploy­ees drifted back in the en­su­ing weeks. Two ex­cep­tions were the Com­mer­cial Di­rec­tor, Jacques Ja­cob­sen and the Eng­lish born Gen­eral Di­rec­tor, Henry Ainsworth, both of whom man­aged to avoid cap­ture and to leave France. Dur­ing the war, like many busi­nesses in the oc­cu­pied (north­ern) zone, the com­pany was obliged to work for the oc­cu­piers and was en­gaged in the re­pair of mil­i­tary vehicles.

In 1941 François Lehideux, then a lead­ing mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment’s eco­nomic team, called Jean-Pierre Peu­geot and his Gen­eral Di­rec­tor Mau­rice Jor­dan to a meet­ing, and in­vited them to study the pos­si­bil­ity of tak­ing a con­trol­ling share in the Hotchkiss business. The sug­ges­tion from Lehideux de­rived from a Ger­man law dated 18 Oc­to­ber 1940 au­tho­ris­ing the con­fis­ca­tion of busi­nesses con­trolled by Jews. The Peu­geot busi­ness it­self had been op­er­at­ing, grudg­ingly, under over­all Ger­man con­trol since the sum­mer of 1940. In any event, in July 1942 Peu­geot took a con­trol­ling share in the Hotchkiss busi­ness and to­wards the end of 1942 the names of Peu­geot and Jor­dan were listed as mem­bers of the Hotchkiss board. There is no ev­i­dence of any at­tempt to com­bine the op­er­a­tions of the two busi­nesses, how­ever: after the war Peu­geot would in due course re­lin­quish their hold­ing in Hotchkiss.

With lib­er­a­tion in 1944, Ainsworth re­turned and pro­duc­tion restarted in 1946 with the pre-war cars, a light truck and a trac­tor.

Post war models

1955 Hotchkiss Anjou

Hotchkiss-Grégoire

After the war, car pro­duc­tion re­sumed only slowly with fewer than 100 cars pro­duced in each of 1946 and 1947, but by 1948 things were mov­ing a lit­tle more rapidly with 460 Hotchkiss cars pro­duced that year. This vol­ume of out­put was wholly in­suf­fi­cient to carry the com­pany, al­though truck pro­duc­tion was a lit­tle more suc­cess­ful with more than 2,300 pro­duced in 1948, and it was sup­port from the truck vol­umes and from

the Jeep based M201 that en­abled the com­pany to stag­ger on as a car pro­ducer slightly more con­vinc­ingly than some of France’s other lux­ury car mak­ers, at least until the mid-1950s. The cars that rep­re­sented the busi­ness in the sec­ond half of the 1940s were es­sen­tially the com­pany’s pre­war de­signs. The 2,312 cc four-cylin­der car was now branded as the Hotchkiss 864 while the six-cylin­der car was badged as the Hotchkiss 680 with a 3,016 cc en­gine or as the Hotchkiss 686 with the 3,485 cc engine.

The lux­ury au­to­mo­bile range was mod­ernised in 1950 and a new car, the four-door sa­loon Anjou, was avail­able on the 1350 (re­named from the 486) and 2050 (686) chas­sis. The high-end Anthéor cabri­o­let was added in 1952. Some Anthéor mod­els were coach­built by Swiss coach­builder Worblaufen.

In 1948 Hotchkiss had bought the rights to the Grégoire front-wheel-drive car and this car en­tered pro­duc­tion in 1951 but was ex­pen­sive. Sales in gen­eral were falling, and on reach­ing his 65th birth­day in 1949 Ainsworth re­tired, to be suc­ceeded in the top job by Mau­rice de Gary. The Peu­geot fam­ily sold their in­ter­est in the com­pany. Coupé and cabri­o­let ver­sions of the Hotchkiss-Grégoire were an­nounced in 1951, but sales did not im­prove, and pro­duc­tion stopped in 1952 after only 247 were made.

Hotchkiss had made 2.700 cars in 1951. The Grégoire de­sign had in­te­gral con­struc­tion, in­de­pen­dent sus­pen­sion all round, a 2.2 Litre flat-four en­gine and front wheel drive. Claimed top speed was 95 mph. Buy­ers did not wel­come its smooth shape. End­less teething trou­bles brought pro­duc­tion to a com­plete stand­still in 1952. Hotchkiss pro­duced 230 cars of all their mod­els in 1953. When the fac­tory fi­nally closed there had been just 250 Hotchkiss-Grégoires built. In 1955 Cit­roen in­tro­duced the DS19 and Peu­geot its 403. Aside from the Grégoire de­sign Hotchkiss could only offer pre-war de­signs. Ex­port sales were lim­ited by the fail­ure to pro­vide left-hand-drive cars.

Merger and closure

Hotchkiss merged with De­la­haye, an­other French lux­ury car brand, in 1954 to be­come Société Hotchkiss-De­la­haye, but car pro­duc­tion stopped in 1955 to be re­placed by li­cence built Jeeps. In 1956 the com­pany was taken over by Brandt, a house­hold ap­pli­ance maker, to be­come Hotchkiss-Brandt, who were again taken over in 1966 by Thom­son-Hous­ton. Mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles were made until 1967 and trucks until 1971.

Pictures from my own collection:

See also

• Delahaye
• Delage
• Talbot-Lago

References

1. ^ “Index entry”. FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
2. ^ http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Alfred_Herbert_Wilde
3. ^ ^abcdefghi “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1940 – 46 (les années sans salon). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 26: Page 41. 2003.
4. ^ ^abc “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1948 (salon Paris oct 1947). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 7: Page 48. 1998.
5. ^ ^ab “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1952 (salon Paris Oct 1951). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 20: Page 40. 2001.
6. ^ Lago America, page 168, Motor Sport magazine, February 1985

External links

Hotchkiss automobiles.

DELAGE Cars 1905 – 1953 Levallois-Perret, France

Delage     

Founded	1905
Founder	Louis Delage
Defunct	1953
Headquarters	Levallois-Perret, France
Products	Cars
Website	www.delage.org

Delage D8-120

Delage was a French luxury automobile and racecar company founded in 1905 by Louis Delage in Levallois-Perret near Paris; it was acquired by Delahaye in 1935 and ceased operation in 1953.

Early history

The company was founded in 1905 by Louis Delage, who borrowed Fr 35,000, giving up a salary of Fr 600 a month to do so.

Its first location was on the Rue Cormeilles in Levallois-Perret. The company at first had just two lathes and three employees, one of them Peugeot‘s former chief designer. Delage initially produced parts for Helbé, with the De Dion-Bouton engine and chassis assembled by Helbé; Delage added only the body.

The first model was the Type A, a voiturette which appeared in 1906. It was powered by a one-cylinder De Dion-Bouton of 4.5 or 9 hp (3.4 or 6.7 kW; 4.6 or 9.1 PS). Like other early carmakers, Delage participated in motor racing, entering the Coupe de Voiturettes held at Rambouillet in November 1906 with a 9 hp (6.7 kW; 9.1 PS) racer. Seven days of regularity trials decided the entrants, and one of the two 9 hp (6.7 kW; 9.1 PS) Delage specials was wrecked in the rain on the fifth; nevertheless, Ménard, the other works driver, came second in the event, behind a Sizaire-Naudin.

In 1907 the factory moved to the Rue Baudin Levallois, where a 4,000 m² (43,000 sq ft) workshop allowed it to grow. The two-cylinder Delages were no match for the competition this year at the Coupe des Voiturettes.

In 1908, the success enabled the development of the factory and entry into more Grand Prix races. That year, racing success returned: Delage won the Grand Prix des Voiturettes held 6 July. This event, six laps of the 47.74 mi (76.83 km) Dieppe Grand Prix circuit, saw 47 starters. Delage fielded three cars: a pair with 1,242 cc (75.8 cu in) (78 by 130 mm (3.1 by 5.1 in)) De Dion-Bouton twins, driven by Thomas and Lucas-Bonnard, and a radical 28 hp (21 kW; 28 PS) 1,257 cc (76.7 cu in) (100 by 160 mm (3.9 by 6.3 in)) one-cylinder (built by Nemorin Causan) in the hands of Delage dealer Albert Guyot. Guyot won at an average 49.8 mph (80.1 km/h), not needing to stop for fuel. All three Delages finished this time, Thomas the quickest of the two-cylinder cars, while the team also took home the regularity prize. These good results contributed to total sales exceeding 300 cars for the year.

Delage converted to four-cylinder engines in 1909, at first provided by De Dion and Edouard Ballot; shortly, the company were producing their own sidevalve fours, too.

After an increase in sales, the existing facilities were too small, so in 1910 the factory moved to a new facility at 138 Boulevard de Verdun, Courbevoie. The following year saw the creation of advanced bodywork. By 1912, 350 workers were producing over 1000 cars annually, and offered four- and six-cylinder sidevalve engines.

During the First World War, Delage produced munitions. Production of passenger cars virtually stopped, with the exception of some fabrication for the Army. But the Delage factories were running full support for the war effort.

When the war concluded, Delage moved away from small cars and made its reputation with larger cars. First up was the CO, with a 4,524 cc (276.1 cu in) (80 by 150 mm (3.1 by 5.9 in)) fixed-head sidevalve six producing 20 hp. The CO plans had been drawn up during the conflict; this was the first passenger car with front brakes. It was joined by the DO with a 3-liter four.

The 1920s were really the first “Golden Age” of Delage. The most famous were the DE and DI: 4 cylinders of about 2 liters and 11 hp. Delage also attempted to compete with Hispano-Suiza, with the GL of 30 hp and 5954 cc, with some success. After that came a new generation of six-cylinder cars, like the MD (3174 cc) and DR (2516 cc), the best-selling vehicle in the history of the brand, designed by engineer Gaultier.

Both the CO and DO were replaced in 1922. The CO became the CO2, which changed to an overhead valve twin-plug head, producing 88 hp (66 kW; 89 PS), while the DO was supplanted by the DE with a 2,117 cc (129.2 cu in) (72 by 130 mm (2.8 by 5.1 in)) sidevalve four and, unusual in a production car even in this era, four-wheel brakes. The CO2 completed the Paris-Nice run in 16 hours, an average of 67 km/h (42 mph).

The next year, the new 14 hp (10 kW; 14 PS) DI also switched to OHV with a 2,121 cc (129.4 cu in) (75 by 120 mm (3.0 by 4.7 in)) four, fitted with magneto ignition and thermosyphon cooling; all had four-speed gearboxes and Zenith carburettors. At the other end of the scale, the GL (Grand Luxe), also known as the 40/50, replaced the CO2, being fitted with a magneto-fired 5,344 cc (326.1 cu in) (90 by 140 mm (3.5 by 5.5 in)) overhead cam six.

In 1923, a hillclimb car with DI chassis, larger wheels and tires, and 5,107 cc (311.6 cu in) (85 by 150 mm (3.3 by 5.9 in)) CO block (with three Zenith carburetors) was produced. Delage scored successes at La Turbie and Mont Ventoux. This car was joined by a 10,688 cc (652.2 cu in) (90 by 140 mm (3.5 by 5.5 in)) V12, which broke the course record at the Gaillon hillclimb, with Thomas at the wheel. Thomas would set the land speed record at Arpajon in this car, at a speed of 143.24 mph (230.52 km/h), in 1924. A 1925 car had a 5,954 cc (363.3 cu in) (95 by 140 mm (3.7 by 5.5 in)) six, again using the GL block, with four valves per cylinder and twin overhead cams. Driven by Divo, it broke the Mont Ventoux course record in its debut. It would be destroyed by fire at the Phoenix Park meet in 1934.

The 1924 and 1925 DIS, with a 117 in (3,000 mm) wheelbase, switched from Rolls-Royce-type locking wheel hubs to Rudge knock-ons, better cam, and bigger valves, while the 1925 and 1926 DISS on the same wheelbase. Some of the DISes were bodied by Kelsch. The DIS became the Series 6 in 1927, switching to coil ignition and water pump.

In 1926, Delage introduced the DM, with a 3,182 cc (194.2 cu in) (75 by 120 mm (3.0 by 4.7 in)) six, which made it emblematic of the era for the marque. The high-performance DMS had hotter cam, twin valve springs, and other improvements. A DR, with a choice of 2.2- and 2.5-liter sidevalve engines, also briefly appeared.

Competition

Delage entered the 1911 Coupe de l’Auto at Boulogne with a 50 hp (37 kW; 51 PS) 2,996 cc (182.8 cu in) (80 by 149 mm (3.1 by 5.9 in)) four with two 60 mm (2.4 in)-diameter bellcrank-operated valves per cylinder controlled by camshafts in the crankcase. The five-speed gearbox gave a top speed of 60 mph (97 km/h), and the four voiturettes each carried 26 imp gal (120 l; 31 US gal), as the factory planned for a no-stop race. Works driver Paul Bablot won, at an average 55.2 mph (88.8 km/h), with a 1m 11s over Boillot’s Peugeot, followed home by Thomas in a second Delage; Delage also took the team prize.

Delage would move up to Grand Prix racing in 1912, with a Léon Michelat-designed car powered by a four-valve 6,235 cc (380.5 cu in) (105 by 180 mm (4.1 by 7.1 in)) four-cylinder of 118 hp (88 kW; 120 PS), coupled again to a five-speed gearbox and fitted this time with 43 imp gal (200 l; 52 US gal). Three cars were built for the 569 mi (916 km) Amiens Grand Prix, though only two, Bablot’s and Guyot’s, actually entered. On the day, Bablot’s Delage proved the fastest car in the field, turning in a lap at 76.6 mph (123.3 km/h), but it was Guyot who would fall out of the lead with a puncture, and the race went to Peugeot, while the Delages were fourth and fifth. At the French Grand Prix, Delage put Bablot first, Guyot second, ahead of Pilette’s 1908 Mercedes GP car, Salzer in a Mercedes, with Duray coming in fifth in the third Delage.

In 1913, the new type Y set the fasted lap time at the French Grand Prix at Le Mans, and in 1914, this same car won the 1914 Indianapolis 500 with René Thomas at the wheel. Thomas, Guyot, and Duray would return to the French Grand Prix with 4½-liter twin-cam desmodromic valved racers featuring twin carburettors, five-speed gearbox, and four-wheel brakes. While quick, they proved unreliable; only one finished, Duray’s, in eighth.

In 1914, Delage emphasized its focus on competition by creating the type O Lyon Grand Prix, while at the same time moving towards the luxury car market with 6 cylinders of a large class. However, racing was severely curtailed during World War One.

Delage D6

In 1923 Louis Delage returned to competition with the innovative 12-cylinder 2-liter type 2 LCV. This car won the 1924 European Grand Prix in Lyon and the 1925 Grand Prix of ACF Montlhéry. The 12-cylinder DH (10,5 liters) of 1924 beat the world speed record on the highway, at 230 km/h (143 mph). A Delage 155 B won the first Grand Prix of Great-Britain in 1926, driven by Louis Wagner and Robert Senechal. The production of cars continued with the DI and the DI S SS. The DM evolved into the DMS and DML, equipped with a 6-cylinder 3-liter engine designed by Maurice Gaultier.

Delage’s Grand Prix effort saw a Plancton-designed 1,984 cc (121.1 cu in) (51.3 by 80 mm (2.02 by 3.15 in)) four overhead cam V12. The 110 hp (82 kW; 110 PS) car, driven by Thomas, fell out of the French Grand Prix in 1923, but went on to perform well for the bulk of the 1923 and 1924 season. With supercharger added in 1925, bringing output to 195 hp (145 kW; 198 PS), it won at Montlhéry and Lasarte, proving as fast as the Alfa Romeo P2, but rarely racing it directly. This car was supplanted in 1926 by a Lory-designed supercharged 1.5-liter twincam straight eight of 170 hp (130 kW; 170 PS); capable of 130 mph (210 km/h), it was the company’s last Grand Prix entrant.

A Delage supercharged straight-8 racing engine

Always passionate about racing, Louis Delage designed an 8-cylinder 1500 cc, the type 15 S 8. This car won four European Grands Prix races in 1927, and won Delage the title “World Champion of Car Builders” that same year.

A 2,988 cc (182.3 cu in)-powered D6 won the 1938 Tourist Trophy at Donington Park and came second at Le Mans. A single V12-powered car, intended for Le Mans, tragically caught fire at the 1938 International Trophy at Brooklands.

Postwar, the best results Delage had were seconds at the 1949 Le Mans and 1950 Paris Grand Prix.

The D6 and the D8: The Classic Era

1930 saw the launch of the 6-cylinder Delage D6 which would form the mainstay of the manufacturer’s passenger car range until 1954.

For 1930 Maurice Gaultier designed an 8-cylinder in-line 4,061 cc, evolving the type D8 into the type D8 S (S for Sport).

1939 Delage D8

The D8 was the pinnacle of the marque. It was offered in three wheelbases, “S” or “C” at 130 in (3,300 mm), “N” at 140 in (3,600 mm), and “L” at 143 in (3,600 mm), all powered by a 4,061 cc (247.8 cu in) (77 by 109 mm (3.0 by 4.3 in)) straight eight, making it capable of 85 mph (137 km/h). Delage followed in 1932 with the Grand Sport, on a 123 in (3,100 mm) 130 in (3,300 mm) in 1934) wheelbase, capable of 100 mph (160 km/h).

But the backlash of the economic crisis of 1929 arrived and manufacturers of luxury cars all over the world suffered from poor sales. The commercial and financial situation of the firm was badly shaken. In 1932 Delage introduced the type D6-11 (6-cylinder 2101 cc), and two years later the new eight-cylinder Delage, type D8-15 (2768 cc). These two models, equipped with independent front wheel suspension did not increase sale figures. The transverse leaf and wishbone independent front suspension was licensed by Studebaker for their cars.

The junior D6s shared Delahaye front suspension design, but had hydraulic rather than Delahaye cable-actuated brakes, also shared the Cotal gearbox with the D8. The D6/70 of 1936 was powered by a 2,729 cc (166.5 cu in) (80 by 90.5 mm (3.15 by 3.56 in)) six, the 1938 D6/75 a 2.8-liter six, and the postwar D8/3L Olympic a 3-liter six. At the bottom of the range was a 1.5-liter four that lasted until 1936.

Financial pressures never disappeared, however, and during the Spring of 1932 Louis Delage was obliged to take out a 25 Million franc loan in order to finance the tooling needed to put the D6 into production. It was at this time that he also entered into negotiations with Peugeot about using their dealership and service network. These negotiations went nowhere, and discussions with other possible partners/rescuers also came to nothing. There were also personal problems involving his marriage which necessitated a rearrangement of Delage’s personal finances, although in the event it was the sale of his expensive home in the Champs-Élysées that reduced the pressure on his finances if only in the short term.

The last models to emerge from the factory in Courbevoie were the types D6-65, D8-85 and D8-105, designed by engineer Michelat. On 20 April 1935 the factory in Courbevoie went into voluntary liquidation.

But Louis Delage would not admit defeat, and with the help of a businessman called Walter Watney created the Société Nouvelle des Automobiles Delage (SAFAD), to market Delage cars, assembled from production Delahayes. This union created the 4-cylinder DI 12 and the D8 120, and also the 6-cylinder D6 70. Watney had taken control as president of SAFAD, but he was a British national and in June 1940 he was obliged to leave Paris as the German Army arrived. Watney stayed in France, at his villa in Beaulieu, until the end of 1942 after the Germans had completed their occupation, but already in December 1940 the presidency of the SAFAD business had passed directly into the control of Delahaye. In any event, since the outbreak of the war Delage had been largely inactive, although they did undertake work on a project to replace the six-cylinder engine of the Hotchkiss H39 tank with the more powerful 8-cylinder unit from the Delage D8 120.

Racing aero-engines

Delage produced at least two types of racing aero-engine during the early 1930s. The Delage 12 CED was fitted to the Kellner-Béchereau 28VD racing aircraft, intended to compete in the 1933 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe air race. Unfortunately the aircraft crashed during qualification trials for the race on 12 May 1933. The second engine type, the Delage 12 GV, remains a mystery, with very little information available.

After the Second World War

A large prototype Delage D-180 limousine appeared at the 1946 Paris Motor Show but there were evidently no further developments on this project and by the next year the big prototype had quietly disappeared. At the 1947 Paris Motor Show only a single model was exhibited as the business focused on its six-cylinder 3-litre Delage D6 which in most respects will have been familiar to anyone who had known the 3-litre Delages of the 1930s. The car was offered with bodies by firms such as Chapron, Letourner & Marchand and Guilloré. A variety of coupe and cabriolet bodied D6s were produced. In addition, both Guilloré and Chapron produced a large saloon/sedan body. The two were remarkably similar, both being six-light four-door cars with conservative 1930s style shapes. Something else the two had in common was unexpectedly narrow rear doors, enforced by the combination of a long body, a long rear overhang and a relatively short wheelbase provided by the D6 chassis. A longer wheelbase 1952 special version, bodied by Guilloré, was owned by National Assembly president Edouard Herriot.

Nevertheless, these were difficult times for luxury auto-makers in France and by now the company’s registered head office was the same as that for Delahaye: production statistics from the period group Delage and Delahaye together. Louis Delâge himself, who had lived in poverty and quasi-monastic isolation since bankruptcy in 1935 had enforced the transfer of his company to Delahaye, died in December 1947, and during the next few years any residual autonomy that the business had enjoyed disappeared. Increases in motoring taxes, most notably in 1948 and most savagely targeting cars with engines of above 2 litres, combined with the depressed economic conditions of post-war France to create a difficult market for luxury car manufacturers. In 1950 Delahaye produced 235 cars which will have included a significant number of Delages. In 1951 the combined production figure for the two brands slumped to 77: in 1952 it was down to 41. In 1953 Delage production ended.

Delage was absorbed into Hotchkiss along with Delahaye in 1954, and car manufacturing ended.

Models

1920 Delage (type S) CO 4 ½ litre Salamanca (1918, 6 cyl, 4,524 cc)

1924 Delage Di(1920, 2,121 cc)

1920-delage-type-co2-22d181v-dual-cowl-tourer Delage CO2 (1921)

Delage 2 LCV (1923, 12 cyl, 2L)

Delage GL (5,954 cc)

Delage DE

Delage DH (12 cyl DH, 10,5L)

Delage DI S

Delage DI SS

Delage DMS (6 cyl, 3L)

Delage DML (6 cyl, 3L)

Scuderia Giddings black 1927
Delage. Beautiful 1500cc twin cam straight eight, blown alloy engine created almost 200 horse power.

Delage 15 S 8 (8 cyl, 1,500 cc)

1924 Delage GL Labourdett DV-08

Delage GL (5,954 cc)

Delage DM (6 cyl, 3,174 cc)

Delage DR (6 cyl, 2,516 cc)

Delage D4 (4 cyl, 1,480 cc)

Delage D6-11 (6 cyl, 2,101 cc)

Delage D8-15 (2,768 cc)

Delage D6-65

1935 Delage D8-85

Delage D8

Delage D8 S (8 cyl, 4,061 cc)

Delage D8-105

1926 Delage DI Torpedo 11CV 4Cyl

1936 Delage DI-12 Pillarless Saloon Delage DI 12 (4 cyl)

Delage D8 120

Delage D6 70 (6 cyl)

My personal collection, found on www:

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Scuderia Giddings black 1927
Delage. Beautiful 1500cc twin cam straight eight, blown alloy engine created almost 200 horse power.

Delage DI 1926 All Weather Tourer. Launched in 1923 the Delage DI was given a 4-cylinder ohv 2120cc 30bhp engine

Delage DI 1926 Drophead Coupe

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Delage op You Tube:

Production volumes

During their years of independence, Delage made almost 40,000 cars at their workshops in Levallois and Courbevoie. After Delage production was subsumed into the Delahaye operation, approximately another 2,000 Delage badged cars were manufactured between 1935 and 1940. With the post-war resumption of passenger car production, 330 Delage cars appear to have been produced by Delahaye between 1946 and 1953.

Sources and further reading

1. Jump up^ Hull, Peter. “Delage: Speed and Elegance in the French Tradition”, in Ward, Ian, executive editor. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 5, p.517.
2. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h} Hull, p.517.
3. Jump up^ Hull, p.517. One was de Dion powered, the other Aster-engined; it is unclear from Hull which was involved in this crash.
4. Jump up^ It featured four spark plugs, four valves per cylinder, two flywheels, and thermosyphon cooling. Hull, p.518.
5. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Hull, p.518.
6. Jump up^ Hull, p.518-519.
7. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i} Hull, p.519.
8. Jump up^ Hull, p.520. It would later be famous at Brooklandsin the hands of John Cobb. In the 1970s, it was still campaigned in veteran and vintage racing by Johnty Williamson and Cecil Clutton.
9. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t} Hull, p.520.
10. Jump up^ Hull, p.519 caption.
11. Jump up^ Powered by an experimental overhead cam six. Hull, p.518.
12. Jump up^ Hull, p.520, says 1995cc, which is belied by the cylinder dimensions.
13. Jump up^ Hull, p.520, says 4,050 cc (247 cu in) which is belied by the quoted cylinder dimensions.
14. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1934 (salon [Paris, Oct] 1933). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 22: 30. 2002.
15. ^ Jump up to:^a b c “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1940 – 46 (les années sans salon). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 26: 32. 2003.
16. Jump up^ Léglise, Pierre (October 1933). TECHNICAL MEMORANDUMS NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR AERONAUTICS; No.724; THE 1933 CONTEST FOR THE DEUTSCH DE LA MEURTHE TROPHY; AIRPLANES PARTICIPATING IN THE CONTEST (PDF). Washington D.C.: NACA. pp. 31–33. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
17. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1948 (salon Paris oct 1947). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 7: 9. 1998.
18. ^ Jump up to:^a b c “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1953 (salon Paris oct 1952). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 19: 22. 2000.
19. ^ Jump up to:^a b c “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1954 (salon [Oct] 1953). Paris: Histoire & collections. Nr. 24: 23. 2002.
20. Jump up^ The chassis number range runs from 1 in 1905 to 39,100 in 1935.
21. Jump up^ Chassis numbers 50,000 to 51,999.
22. Jump up^ Chassis numbers 880,000 to 880,330.

Hull, Peter. “Delage: Speed and Elegance in the French Tradition”, in Ward, Ian, executive editor. World of Automobiles, Volume 5, pp. 517–520. London: Orbis, 1974.

External links

Les Amis de Delage, website of Delage-collectors

Delage World, web site maintained by collector Peter Jacobs

DELAHAYE

DELAHAYE Automobiles and Trucks

for Delahaye Buses see : https://myntransportblog.com/2014/01/19/buses-delahaye-tours-france/

Industry	Manufacturing
Founded	1894
Founder	Emile Delahaye
Defunct	1954
Headquarters	Tours (France)
Products	Cars

Delahaye automobile was an automotive manufacturing company founded by Emile Delahaye in 1894, in Tours, France, his home town. His first cars were belt-driven, with single- or twin-cylinder engines mounted at the rear. His Type One was an instant success, and he urgently needed investment capital and a larger manufacturing facility. Both were provided by a new Delahaye owner and fellow racer, George Morane, and his brother-in-law Leon Desmarais, who partnered with Emile in the incorporation of the new automotive company, “Societe Des Automobiles Delahaye”, in 1898. All three worked with the foundry workers to assemble the new machines, but middle-aged Emile was not in good health. In January 1901, he found himself unable to capably continue, and resigned, selling his shares to his two equal partners. Emile Delahaye died soon after, in 1905. Delahaye had hired two instrumental men, Charles Weiffenbach and Amadee Varlet in 1898, to assist the three partners. Both were graduate mechanical engineers, and they remained with Delahaye their entire working careers. Weiffenbach was appointed Manager of Operations, and, with the blessing of both George Morane and Leon Desmarais, assumed control over all of Delahaye’s operations and much of its decision-making, in 1906. Amadee Varlet was the company’s design-engineer, with a number of innovative inventions to his credit, generated between 1905 and 1914, which Delahaye patented. These included the twin-cam multi-valve engine, and the V6 configuration. Varlet continued in this role until he eventually took over the Drawing Office, at 76 years of age, when much younger Jean Francois was hired in 1932 as chief design-engineer. In 1932, Varlet was instructed by Weiffenbach, under direction from majority shareholder Madam Desmarais, Leon Desmarais’ widow, to set up the company’s Racing Department, assisted by Jean Francois. <Club Delahaye archive>. Those who knew him well at the factory affectionately referred to Charles Weiffenbach as “Monsieur Charles”.

History

Delahaye 135 MS Pourtout cabriolet

Delahaye began experimenting with belt-driven cars while manager of the Brethon Foundry and Machine-works in Tours, in 1894. These experiments encouraged an entry in the 1896 Paris–Marseille–Paris race, held between 24 September-3 October 1896, fielding one car for himself and one for sportsman Ernest Archdeacon. The winning Panhard averaged 15.7 mph (25.3 km/h); Archdeacon came sixth, averaging 14 mph (23 km/h), while Delahaye himself was eighth, averaging 12.5 mph (20.1 km/h).

For the 1897 Paris-Dieppe, the 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) four-cylinder Delahayes ran in four- and six-seater classes, with a full complement of passengers. Archdeacon was third in the four-seaters behind a De Dion-Bouton and a Panhard, Courtois winning the six-seater class, ahead of the only other car in the class.

In March 1898, 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) the Delahayes of Georges Morane and Courtois came sixteenth and twenty-eighth at the Marseilles-Nice rally, while at the Course de Perigeux in May, De Solages finished sixth in a field of ten. The July Paris-Amsterdam-Paris earned a satisfying class win for Giver in his Delahaye; the overall win went to Panhard.

Soon after the new company was formed in 1898, the firm moved its manufacturing from Tours to Paris, into its new factory (a former hydraulic machinery plant that Morane and his brother-in-law Leon Desmarais had inherited from Morane’s father). Charles Weiffenbach was named Operations Manager. Delahaye would produce three models there, until the close of the 19th century: two twins, the 2.2-litre 4.5 hp (3.4 kW; 4.6 PS) Type 1 and 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) Type 2, and the lighter Type 0 (which proved capable of up to 22 mph (35 km/h)), with a 1.4-liter single rated between 5 and 7 hp (3.7 and 5.2 kW; 5.1 and 7.1 PS). All three had bicycle-style steering, water-cooled engines mounted in the rear, automatic valves, surface carburetors, and trembler coil ignition; drive was a combination of belt and chain, with three forward speeds and one reverse.

In 1899, Archdeacon piloted an 8 hp (6.0 kW; 8.1 PS) racer in the Nice-Castellane-Nice rally, coming eighth, while teammate Buissot’s 8 hp (6.0 kW; 8.1 PS) was twelfth.

Founder Emile Delahaye retired in 1901, leaving Desmarais and Morane in control; Weiffenbach took over from them in 1906. Delahaye’s racing days were over with Emile Delahaye’s death. Charles Weiffenbach had no interest in racing, and focused his production on responsible motorized automotive chassis, heavy commercial vehicles, and early firetrucks for the French government. Race-cars had become a thing of the past for Delahaye, until 1933, when Madam Desmarais caused her company to change direction a hundred-and-eighty degree, and return to racing.

The new 10B debuted in 1902. It had a 2,199 cc (134.2 cu in) (100 by 140 mm (3.9 by 5.5 in)) vertical twin rated 12/14 hp by RAC, mounted in front, with removable cylinder head, steering wheel (rather than bicycle handles or tiller), and chain drive. Delahaye also entered the Paris-Vienna rally with a 16 hp (12 kW; 16 PS) four; Pirmez was thirty-seventh in the voiturette class. At the same year’s Ardennes event, Perrin’s 16 hp (12 kW; 16 PS) four came tenth.

Also in 1902, the singles and twins ceased to be offered except as light vans; before production ceased in 1904, about 850 had been built.

Delahaye’s first production four, the Type 13B, with 24/27 hp 4.4-litre, appeared in 1903. The model range expanded in 1904, including the 4.9-litre 28 hp (21 kW; 28 PS) four-cylinder Type 21, the mid-priced Type 16, and the two-cylinder Type 15B. These were joined in 1905 by a chain-driven 8-litre luxury model, one of which was purchased by King Alfonso.

All 1907 models featured half-elliptic springs at the rear as well as transverse leaf springs, and while shaft drive appeared that year, chain drive was retained on luxury models until 1911. In 1908, the Type 32 was the company’s first to offer an L-head monoblock engine.

Protos began licence production of Delahayes in Germany in 1907, while in 1909, h. M. Hobson began importing Delahayes to Britain. Also in 1909, White pirated the Delahaye design; the First World War interrupted any efforts to recover damages.

Delahaye invented and pioneered the V6 engine in 1911, with a 30° 3.2-litre twin-cam, in the Type 44; the invention is credited to Amadee Varlet, Delahaye’s chief design-engineer at the time. The Type 44 was not a success and production stopped in 1914. It had been designed by Amadee Varlet, who had joined Delahaye at the same time that Charles Weiffenback was hired by Emile Delahaye, in 1898. The Type 44 was the only V-6 engine ever made by Delahaye, and it was the last time the company used a twin-cam engine.

Delahaye engineer Amadee Varlet designed the Delahaye “Titan” marine engine, an enormous cast-iron four cylinder engine that was fitted into purpose-built speedboat “La Dubonnet” which briefly held the World Speed Record on Water. With the ‘Titan’ Amadee Varlet had invented the multi-valve twin-cam engine in 1905, the same year that Emile Delahaye died.

At the Paris factory, Delahaye continued to manufacture cars, trucks, and a few buses. By the end of World War I, their major income was from their truck business that included France’s firetrucks.

After the war, Delahaye switched to a modest form of assembly line production, following the example of Ford, hampered by the “extensive and not particularly standardized range” of cars for Chenard et Walker, and itself, and farm machines for the FAR Tractor Company. The collaboration with FAR Tractor Company and Chenard-Walcker did not last long. This continued until continually reduced sales volume made a change necessary, for the company to survive. It has been alleged that Monsieur Charles met with his friend, competitor Ettore Bugatti, to seek his opinion on turning Delahaye around. Whether or not this meeting actually occurred, it is on record that Madam Leon Desmarais, the majority shareholder and Leon Desmarais’ widow, instructed Charles Weiffenbach to come up with a new higher quality automotive-chassis line with vastly improved horsepower, and re-establish a racing department. That pivotal decision was made in 1932, the year that Jean Francois was hired. By 1933, Delahaye was back in the racing game, and promptly went about winning events and setting records.

At the 1933 Paris Salon, Delahaye showed the Superluxe, with a 3.2-litre six, transverse independent front suspension, and Cotal preselector or synchromesh-equipped manual transmission. It would be accompanied in the model range by a 2,150 cc (131 cu in) four (essentially a cut-down six), and a sporting variant, the 18 Sport.

In 1934, Delahaye set eighteen class records at Montlhéry, in a specially-prepared, stripped and streamlined 18 Sport. They also introduced the 134N, a 12cv car with a 2.15-litre four-cylinder engine, and the 18cv Type 138, powered by a 3.2-litre six — both engines derived from their successful truck engines. In 1935, success in the Alpine Trial led to the introduction of the sporting Type 135 “Coupe des Alpes”. By the end of 1935, Delahaye had won eighteen minor French sports car events and a number of hill-climbs, and came fifth at Le Mans.

Racing success brought success to their car business as well, enough for Delahaye to buy Delage in 1935. Delage cars continued in production from 1935 to 1951, and were finally superseded by the Type 235, a modestly updated 135. The truck business continued to thrive. Some of the great coachbuilders who provided bodies for Delahayes include Figoni et Falaschi, Chapron, and Letourneur et Marchand, and Joseph Saoutchik, as well as Guillore, Faget-Varlet, Pourtout, and a few others less well known.

Delahaye ran four 160 hp (120 kW; 160 PS) cars (based on the Type 135) in the 1936 Ulster TT, placing second to Bugatti, and entered four at the Belgian 24 Hours, coming 2-3-4-5 behind an Alfa Romeo.

American heiress Lucy O’Reilly Schell approached the company with an offer to pay the development costs to build short “Competition Court” 2.70- metre wheelbase Type 135 cars to her specifications for rallying. Sixteen were produced, most having been uniformly bodied by “Lacanu” a small coachbuilding firm owned and operated by Olivier Lecanu-Deschamps. Joseph Figoni also bodied one of these chassis. Lecanu could respond quickly, build economically, and was favored by Delahaye for its race-cars. All four Type 145 race-cars were bodied by Lecanu, to a weirdly homely design by Jean Francois. Lecanu both designed and built the last of the four Type 145 bodies, this one on chassis 48775.

In 1937, René Le Bègue and Julio Quinlin won the Monte Carlo Rally driving a Delahaye. Delahaye also ran first and second at Le Mans. Against the government-sponsored juggernauts Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, Delahaye brought out the Type 145, powered by a new, complicated 4½-liter V12 with three camshafts located in the block, with pushrod-actuated valves and four overhead rocker-shafts, dual Bosch magneto ignition, and triple Stromberg carburettors. Called “Million Franc Delahaye” after a victory in the Million Franc Race, the initial Type 145, chassis 48771, was driven by René Dreyfus to an average speed 91.07 mph (146.56 km/h) over 200 kilometres (120 mi) at Montlhéry in 1937, earning a Fr200,000 prize from the government. Dreyfus also scored a victory in the Ecurie Bleu Type 145, again number 48771 at Pau, relying on superior fuel economy to beat the more powerful Mercedes-Benz W154, in 1938. Third place in the same race was claimed by Gianfranco Comotti, driving Delahaye Type 145 number 48775. Dreyfus brought his Type 145 number 48771 to its second grand-prix win at Cork, in Ireland, but the German teams had boycotted this event, being another between-the-houses race where they could not exploit their superior power. Type 135s also won the Paris-Nice and Monte Carlo Rallys, and LeMans, that year, while a V12 model (Type 145 number 48773) was fourth in the Mille Miglia. These victories combined with French patriotism to create a wave of demand for Delahaye cars, up until the German occupation of France during World War II. The Type 145 was also the basis for five grand-touring Type 165s, three of which exist today. The other two were demolished during the second World War.

In early 1940, one hundred Type 134N and Type 168 chassis were built (Renault-bodied) as military cars under contract for the French army. The government had ordered private sales to cease in June, 1939, but small numbers of cars continued to be built for the occupying German forces until at least 1942.

After the Second World War

After World War II, the depressed French economy and an increasingly punitive luxury tax regime aimed at luxurious non-essential products, and cars with engines above 2-litres, made life difficult for luxury auto-makers. Like all the principal French automakers, Delahaye complied with government requirements in allocating the majority of its vehicles for export, and in 1947 88% of Delahaye production was exported (compared to 87% of Peugeot and 80% of Talbot output), primarily to French colonies, including those in Africa. Nevertheless, Delahaye volumes, with 573 cars produced in 1948 (against 34,164 by market-leader Citroën), were unsustainably low.

Production of the Type 135 was resumed, with new styling by Philippe Charbonneaux. The Type 175, with a 4.5-litre inline overhead-valve six, was introduced in 1948; this, and the related Type 178 and 180, proved unsuccessful. The Type 175, 178 and 180 were replaced by the Type 235 in 1951, with an up-rated 135 engine producing 152 hp (113 kW; 154 PS).

Until the early 1950s, a continuing demand for military vehicles enabled the company to operate at reasonable albeit low volumes, primarily thanks to demand for the Type 163 trucks, sufficient to keep the business afloat.

A 1-ton capacity light truck sharing its 3.5-litre six-cylinder overhead-valve engine with the company’s luxury cars (albeit with lowered compression ratio and reduced power output) made its debut at the 1949 Paris Motor Show. During the next twelve months, this vehicle, the Type 171, spawned several brake-bodied versions, the most interesting of which were the ambulance and 9-seater familiale variant. The vehicle’s large wheels and high ground clearance suggest it was targeted at markets where many roads were largely dust and mud, and the 171 was, like the contemporary Renault Colorale which it in some respects resembled, intended for use in France’s African colonies. The vehicle also enjoyed some export success in Brazil, and by 1952 the Type 171 was being produced at the rate of approximately 30 per month.

As passenger car sales slowed further, the last new model, a 2.0-litre jeep-like vehicle known as VLRD (Véhicule Léger de Reconnaissance (Delahaye)), sometimes known as the VRD, or VLR, was released in 1951. The French army believed that this vehicle offered a number of advantages over the “traditional” American built jeep of the period. It was in 1951 that Delahaye discontinued production of the Types 175, 178 and 180. During 1953 the company shipped 1,847 VRDs as well as 537 “special” military vehicles: the number of Delahaye- or Delage-badged passenger cars registered in the same year was in that context near negligible, at 36.

Financial difficulties created by an acute shortage of wealthy car buyers intensified. Delahaye’s main competitor, Hotchkiss, managed to negotiate a licensing agreement with American Motors, and obtained sanction to manufacture its Willys MB Jeep in France. The French army had learned to appreciate the simpler machine, available at a much lower price, and cancelled Delahaye’s contract for the more sophisticated VLR reconnaissance vehicle, dealing a hard blow to Delahaye. In August 1953 the company laid off more than 200 workers and salaried employees. Rumours of management discussions with Hotchkiss over some sort of coming together proved well founded. Hotchkiss were struggling with the same problems, but it was hoped that the two businesses might prove more resilient together than separately, and an agreement was signed by the two company presidents, Pierre Peigney for Delahaye and Paul Richard for Hotchkiss, on 19 March 1954. Delahaye shareholders agreed to the protocol, which amounted to a take over of Delahaye by Hotchkiss, less than three months later, on 9 June. Hotchkiss shut down Delahaye car production. By the end of 1954, for a brief period selling trucks with the Hotchkiss-Delahaye nameplate, the combined firm was itself taken over by Brandt, and by 1955, Delahaye and Hotchkiss were out of the automotive chassis business altogether, having their facilities absorbed by the giant Brandt organization with its own objectives for its captives’ assets. By 1956, the brands Delahaye, Delage, and Hotchkiss had forever disappeared.

Models

1899 built vehicle in 2006

Delahaye 134 – 1933-40

135

Delahaye 135 – 1935-54

 

http://8w.forix.com/delahaye138.html

Delahaye 138

Delahaye 148

?

Delahaye 168 – 1938-40

Delahaye 175 – 1948-51

Delahaye 178

Delahaye 180

Delahaye 235 – 1951-54

Picture gallery

• Engine Delahaye Type 32L Limousine 1912
• Delahaye 175S Roadster (1949) with coachwork by Saoutchik
• Delahaye 135 MS (1936)
• Delahaye 235MS Coupé (1953)
• Delahaye 135 (1948)

• Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi (1939)

• 

  Delahaye Cabriolet (1937)

  Delahaye 135

  

  Delahaye 135 cabriolet pourtout

  Delahaye 135 M Pourtout (1948)

  

  Delahaye Tourer (1925)

  

  Delahaye 135M

  

  Delahaye 235M Saoutchik (1953)

  

  Delahaye 178 Drophead Coupé (1949), once owned by Elton John.

References

1. Jump up^ Hull, Peter. “Delahaye: Famous on Road and Race Track”, in Ward, Ian, executive editor. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 5, p.521.
2. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f} Hull, p.521.
3. Jump up^ Hull, p.521 caption.
4. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Hull, p.522.
5. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j} Hull, p.523.
6. Jump up^ Hull, p.522 caption.
7. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j} Hull, p.524.
8. Jump up^ Hull, p.523 caption.
9. Jump up^ “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1948 (salon Paris oct 1947) (Paris: Histoire & collections). Nr. 7: 26. 1998.
10. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c} “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1953 (salon Paris oct 1952) (Paris: Histoire & collections). Nr. 19: 23. 2000.
11. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c} “Automobilia”. Toutes les voitures françaises 1954 (salon [Oct] 1953) (Paris: Histoire & collections). Nr. 24: 24. 2002.

• Delahaye Flickr Group
• Club Delahaye
• 1949 Delahaye Roadster belonging to Diana Dors (BBC)

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test 022

Highlites from early Road & Track issues

Highlites from early Road & Track issues

Highlites from early Road & Track issues

Highlites from early Road & Track issues

2009 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance

Maastricht Interclasics & Topmobiel

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This is all i could find about Delahaye on the World Wide Web.

PEUGEOT automobiles

PEUGEOT cars

Peugeot

For the article about the bicycle manufacturer, see Cycles Peugeot.

Peugeot

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Automotive
Founded	1810 as a coffee mill company 1830 as a bicycle manufacturer 1882 as a car manufacturer 1898 as a motorcycle company 1926 as a separate company
Founder	Armand Peugeot
Headquarters	Legal and top level administrative: Ave de la Grande Armée, Paris Operational: Sochaux, France
Key people	Carlos Tavares (CEO) Jean-Pierre Ploue (head of design)
Products	Cars Luxury cars Sports cars Commercial vehicles
Production output	1,739,000 (2009)
Net income	€477 million (first half 2014)
Number of employees	198,210 (2010) (PSA Peugeot Citroën total)
Parent	PSA Peugeot Citroën(Peugeot S.A.)
Subsidiaries	Peugeot Motorcycles Peugeot (bicycles) Peugeot Sport
Slogan	Motion and Emotion.
Website	Peugeot.com

Peugeot RCZ won five years in a row theDiesel Car magazine ‘Sports Car of the Year’ and the Top Gear 2010 Coupé of the Year

Peugeot (US /puːˈʒoʊ/; UK /ˈpɜːrʒoʊ/; French pronunciation: [pøʒo]) is a French cars brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën.

The family business that preceded the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Émile Peugeot applied for the lion trademark. Armand Peugeot built the company’s first car, an unreliable steam tricycle, in collaboration with Leon Serpollet in 1889; this was followed in 1890 by an internal combustion car with a Panhard–Daimler engine. Due to family discord, Armand Peugeot in 1896 founded the Société des Automobiles Peugeot.

The Peugeot company and family are originally from Sochaux, France. Peugeot retains a large manufacturing plant and Peugeot museum there. In February 2014, the shareholders agreed to a recapitalisation plan, in which Dongfeng Motors and the French government each bought a 14% stake in the company.

Peugeot has received many international awards for its vehicles, including four European Car of the Year awards. In 2013 and 2014, Peugeot ranked the second lowest for average CO₂ emissions among generalist brands in Europe, the Renault car maker group being ranked first, with 114.9g CO₂/km. Peugeot is known as a very reliable brand, citing how its 1950s and 1960s models are still running in Africa and Cuba in the 2010s, where Peugeot is called “the lion”.

Peugeot has had an impressive history in motor sport for more than a century. Peugeot Sport won the World Rally Championship five times, the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup twice (2010, 2011), surpassing Toyota and Audi, the World Endurance Championship twice (1992, 1993), and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge Championship three times. During the last year, Peugeot Sport has surpassed the record set in the ascent to Pikes Peak with the Peugeot 208 T16 driven by Sébastien Loeb, and got a triple victory of the Peugeot 208 GTi in its class at the 24 Hours Nürburgring race. In 2015, Peugeot returned to the Dakar Rally after its four victories in the 1980s.

History

Early history

The Peugeot family of Valentigney, Montbéliard, Franche-Comté, France, began in the manufacturing business in the 19th century. In 1842, they added production of coffee, pepper, and salt grinders. The company’s entry into the vehicle market was by means of crinoline dresses, which used steel rods, leading to umbrella frames, saw blades, chisels, wire wheels, and bicycles. Armand Peugeot introduced his “Le Grand Bi” penny-farthing in 1882, along with a range of other bicycles. The car company and bike company parted ways in 1926 but Peugeot bicycles continued to be built until very recently.

Armand Peugeot became interested in the automobile early on and, after meeting with Gottlieb Daimler and others, was convinced of its viability. The first Peugeot automobile, a three-wheeled, steam-powered car designed by Léon Serpollet, was produced in 1889; only four examples were made. Steam power was heavy and bulky and required lengthy warmup times. In 1890, after meeting Daimler and Émile Levassor, steam was abandoned in favour of a four-wheeled car with a petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine built by Panhard under Daimler licence. The car was more sophisticated than many of its contemporaries, with a three-point suspension and a sliding-gear transmission. An example was sold to the young Alberto Santos-Dumont, who exported it to Brazil.

More cars followed, 29 being built in 1892, 40 in 1894, 72 in 1895, 156 in 1898, and 300 in 1899. These early models were given “type” numbers. Peugeot became the first manufacturer to fit rubber tyres (solid, rather than pneumatic) to a petrol-powered car.

Peugeot was an early pioneer in motor racing, with Albert Lemaître winning the world’s first motor race, the Paris–Rouen, in a 3 hp Peugeot. Five Peugeots qualified for the main event, and all finished. Lemaître finished 3 min 30 sec behind the Comte de Dion whose steam-powered car was ineligible for the official competition. Three Peugeots were entered in the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, where they were beaten by Panhard’s car (despite an average speed of 20.8 km/h (12.9 mph) and taking the 31,500 franc prize.This also marked the debut of Michelin pneumatic tyres in racing, also on a Peugeot; they proved insufficiently durable. Nevertheless, the vehicles were still very much horseless carriages in appearance and were steered by a tiller.

In 1896, the first Peugeot engines were built; no longer were they reliant on Daimler. Designed by Rigoulot, the first engine was an 8 hp (6.0 kW) horizontal twin fitted to the back of the Type 15. It also served as the basis of a nearly exact copy produced by Rochet-Schneider. Further improvements followed: the engine moved to the front on the Type 48 and was soon under a bonnet at the front of the car, instead of hidden underneath; the steering wheel was adopted on the Type 36; and they began to look more like the modern car.

Also in 1896, Armand Peugeot broke away from Les Fils de Peugeot Frères to form his own company, Société Anonyme des Automobiles Peugeot, building a new factory at Audincourt to focus entirely on cars. In 1899, sales hit 300; total car sales for all of France that year were 1,200. The same year, Lemaître won the Nice-Castellane-Nice Rally in a special 5,850 cc (357 cu in) 20 hp (14.9 kW) racer.

At the 1901 Paris Salon, Peugeot debuted a tiny shaft-driven 652 cc (40 cu in) 5 hp (3.7 kW) one-cylinder, dubbed “Bébé” (“baby”), and shed its conservative image, becoming a style leader. After placing 19th in the 1902 Paris-Vienna Rally with a 50 hp (37.3 kW) 11,322 cc (691 cu in) racer, and failing to finish with two similar cars, Peugeot quit racing.

Peugeot added motorcycles to its range in 1903, and they have been built under the Peugeot name ever since. By 1903, Peugeot produced half of the cars built in France, and they offered the 5 hp (4 kW) Bébé, a 6.5 hp (4.8 kW) four-seater, and an 8 hp (6.0 kW) and 12 hp (8.9 kW) resembling contemporary Mercedes models.

The 1907 salon showed Peugeot’s first six-cylinder, and marked Tony Huber joining as engine builder. By 1910, Peugeot’s product line included a 1,149 cc (70 cu in) two-cylinder and six four-cylinders, of between two and six liters. In addition, a new factory opened the same year at Sochaux, which became the main plant in 1928.

A more famous name, Ettore Bugatti, designed the new 850 cc (52 cu in) four-cylinder Bébé of 1912. The same year, Peugeot returned to racing with a team of three driver-engineers (a breed typical of the pioneer period, exemplified by Enzo Ferrari among others): Jules Goux (graduate of Arts et Metiers, Paris), Paolo Zuccarelli (formerly of Hispano-Suiza), and Georges Boillot (collectively called Les Charlatans), with 26-year-old Swiss engineer Ernest Henry to make their ideas reality. The company decided voiturette(light car) racing was not enough, and chose to try grandes épreuves (grand touring). They did so with an engineering tour de force: a dual overhead camshaft (DOHC) 7.6-liter four-cylinder (110×200 mm) with four valves per cylinder. It proved faster than other cars of its time, and Boillot won the 1912 French Grand Prix at an average of 68.45 mph (110.2 km/h), despite losing third gear and taking a 20-minute pit stop. In May 1913, Goux took one to Indianapolis, and won at an average of 75.92 mph (122.2 km/h), recording straightaway speeds of 93.5 mph (150.5 km/h). making Peugeot the first non-American-based auto company to win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 1914, Boillot’s 3-liter L5 set a new Indy lap record of 99.5 mph (160.1 km/h), and Duray placed second (beaten by ex-Peugeot ace René Thomas in a 6,235 cc (380 cu in) Delage). Another (driven by Boillot’s brother, André) placed in 1915; similar models won in 1916 (Dario Resta) and 1919 (Howdy Wilcox).

For the 1913 French Grand Prix, an improved L5 (with 5,655 cc (345 cu in) engine) was produced with a pioneering ballbearing crankshaft, gear-driven camshafts, and dry sump lubrication, all of which soon became standard on racing cars; Zuccarelli was killed during testing on public roads, but Boillot easily won the event, making him (and Peugeot) the race’s first double winner. For the 1914 French GP, Peugeot was overmatched by Mercedes, and despite a new innovation, four-wheel brakes (against the Mercedes’ rear-only), Georges proved unable to match them and the car broke down. (Surprisingly, a 1914 model turned a 103 mph (165.8 km/h) lap in practice at Indy in 1949, yet it failed to qualify.) Peugeot was more fortunate in 1915, winning at the French GP and Vanderbilt Cup.

During the First World War, Peugeot turned largely to arms production, becoming a major manufacturer of arms and military vehicles, from armoured cars and bicycles to shells.

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  Paris-Rouen 1894. Albert Lemaître (pictured on left) was classified 1st in his Peugeot 3 hp. Bicycle manufacturer Adolphe Clément-Bayard was the front passenger.

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  Peugeot 6HP Vis-à-vis 1898

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  Peugeot Type 19, 1899

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  Peugeot Type 125 a midrange car produced in 1910

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  Peugeot, model Phaeton 139A, 1913

Interwar year

Peugeot 201

After the war, car production resumed in earnest. Racing continued as well, with Boillot entering the 1919 Targa Florio in a 2.5-liter (150-in³) car designed for an event pre-empted by World War I; the car had 200,000 km (120,000 mi) on it, yet Boillot won with an impressive drive (the best of his career) Peugeots in his hands were third in the 1925 Targa, first in the 1922 and 1925 Coppa Florios, first in the 1923 and 1925 Touring Car Grands Prix, and first at the 1926 Spa 24 Hours. Peugeot introduced a five-valve-per-cylinder, triple-overhead-cam engine for the Grand Prix, conceived by Marcel Gremillon (who had criticised the early DOHC), but the engine was a failure.

The same year, Peugeot debuted 10 hp (7.5 kW) and 14 hp (10.4 kW) fours, the larger based on the Type 153, and a 6-liter 25 hp (19 kW) sleeve valve six, as well as a new cyclecar, La Quadrilette.

During the 1920s, Peugeot expanded, in 1926 splitting the cycle (pedal and motor) business off to form Cycles Peugeot, the consistently profitable cycle division seeking to free itself from the rather more cyclical auto business, and taking over the defunct Bellanger and De Dion companies in 1927. In 1928, the Type 183 was introduced.

Peugeot Sochaux production (units):

• 1930 43,303
• 1931 33,322
• 1932 28,317

Soon after the timely introduction of the Peugeot 201, the Great Depression hit all the French auto-makers: Peugeot sales slumped, but the company survived.

New for 1929 was the Peugeot 201, the cheapest car on the French market, and the first to use the later Peugeot trademark (and registered as such)—three digits with a central zero. The 201 would get independent front suspension in 1931, Soon afterwards, the Depression hit; Peugeot sales decreased, but the company survived.

In 1933, attempting a revival of fortune, the company unveiled a new, aerodynamically styled range. In 1934, Peugeot introduced the 402 BL Éclipse Décapotable, the first convertible with a retractable hardtop — an idea followed later by the Ford Skyliner in the 1950s and revived in the modern era by the Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder in 1995. More recently, many manufacturers have offered retractable hardtops, including Peugeot itself with the 206-cc.

Three models of the 1930s were the Peugeot 202, Peugeot 302, and Peugeot 402. These cars had curvaceous bodies, with headlights behind sloping grille bars, evidently inspired by the Chrysler Airflow. The 2.1-liter 402 entered production in 1935 and was produced until the end of 1941, despite France’s occupation by the Nazis. For 1936, the new Airflow-inspired 302 (which ran until 1938) and a 402-based large model, designed by Andrean, featured a vertical fin and bumper, with the first high-mounted taillight. The entry-level 202 was built in series from 1938 to 1942, and about 20 more examples were built from existing stocks of supplies in February 1945. The 202 lifted Peugeot’s sales in 1939 to 52,796, just behind Citroën. Regular production began again in mid-1946, and lasted into 1949.

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  Peugeot Type 163 produced from 1919 to 1924

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  Experimental Peugeot-Kégresse track armoured car being tested in 1923

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  1928 Peugeot Type 177 produced from 1924 to 1929

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  Peugeot 202 cabriolet. The protected position of the headlights behind the grill became a key identifier for the Peugeot brand during the 1930s

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  Peugeot 601 C Eclipse 1934 Pourtout

Peugeot 403, the sedan version of the cabriolet driven by the Hollywood detective Columbo

1965 Peugeot 404

After World War II

In 1946, the company restarted car production with the 202, delivering 14,000 copies. In 1947, Peugeot introduced the Peugeot 203, with coil springs, rack-and-pinion steering, and hydraulic brakes. The 203 set new Peugeot sales records, remaining in production until 1960.

Peugeot took over Chenard-Walcker in 1950, having already been required to acquire a controlling interest in Hotchkiss in 1942. A popular model introduced in 1955 was the Peugeot 403. With a 1.5-liter engine, it sold one million copies by the end of its production run in 1962, famously including one cabriolet/convertible driven by TV detective Columbo.

The company began selling cars in the United States in 1958, and in 1960 introduced the Peugeot 404, which used a 1,618 cc (99 cu in) engine, tilted 45°. The 404 proved rugged enough to win the East African Safari Rally, in four of the six years between 1963 and 1968.

More models followed, many styled by Pininfarina, such as the 504, one of Peugeot’s most distinctive models. Like many European manufacturers, collaboration with other firms increased; Peugeot worked with Renault from 1966 and Volvo from 1972.

Several Peugeot models were assembled in Australia, commencing with the 203 in 1953. These were followed by 403, 404 and 504 models with Australian assembly ending with the 505 in the early 1980s.

Takeover of Citroën and Chrysler Europe

Main article: PSA Peugeot Citroën

In 1974, Peugeot bought a 30% share of Citroën, and took it over completely in 1975 after the French government gave large sums of money to the new company. Citroën was in financial trouble because it developed too many radical new models for its financial resources. Some of them, notably the Citroën SM and the Comotor Wankel engine venture proved unprofitable. Others, the Citroën CX and Citroën GS for example, proved very successful in the marketplace.

The joint parent company became the PSA (Peugeot Société Anonyme) group, which aimed to keep separate identities for both the Peugeot and Citroën brands, while sharing engineering and technical resources. Peugeot thus briefly controlled the Italian Maserati marque, but disposed of it in May 1975.

The group then took over the European division of Chrysler (which were formerly Rootes and Simca), in 1978 as the American auto manufacturer struggled to survive. Soon, the whole Chrysler/Simca range was sold under the revived Talbot badge until production of Talbot-branded passenger cars was shelved in 1987 and on commercial vehicles in 1992.

1980s and 1990s

1983 Peugeot 205

In 1983, Peugeot launched the successful Peugeot 205 supermini, which is largely credited for turning the company’s fortunes around. The 205 was regularly the bestselling car in France, and was also very popular in other parts of Europe, including Britain, where sales regularly topped 50,000 a year by the late 1980s. It won plaudits for its styling, ride and handling. It remained on sale in many markets until 1998, overlapping with the introduction of the 106 in 1991, and ceasing production at the launch of the 206, which also proved hugely popular across Europe.

As part of the Guangzhou Peugeot Automobile Company (GPAC) joint venture, the Peugeot 504 and 505 were built in China from 1985 to 1997.

By 1987, the company had dropped the Talbot brand for passenger cars when it ceased production of the Simca-based Horizon, Alpine, and Solara models, as well as the Talbot Samba supermini which was based on the Peugeot 104. What was to be called the Talbot Arizona became the Peugeot 309, with the former Rootes plant in Ryton and Simca plant in Poissy being turned over for Peugeot assembly. Producing Peugeots in Ryton was significant, as it signalled the first time Peugeots would be built in Britain. The 309 was the first Peugeot-badged hatchback of its size, and sold well across Europe. The 309’s successor, the 306, was also built at Ryton.

The 405 saloon was launched in 1987 to compete with the likes of the Ford Sierra, and was voted European Car of the Year. This, too, was a very popular car across Europe, and continued to be available in Africa and Asia after it was replaced by the 406 nearly a decade later. Production of the 405 in Europe was divided between Britain and France, although its 406 successor was only produced in France. The 106, Peugeot’s entry-level model from 1991, was also produced solely in France.

The Talbot name survived for a little longer on commercial vehicles until 1992 before being shelved completely. As experienced by other European volume car makers, Peugeot’s United States and Canadian sales faltered and finally became uneconomical, as the Peugeot 505 design aged. For a time, distribution in the Canadian market was handled by Chrysler. Several ideas to turn around sales in the United States, such as including the Peugeot 205 in its lineup, were considered but not pursued. In the early 1990s, the newly introduced 405 proved uncompetitive with domestic and import models in the same market segment, and sold less than 1,000 units. Total sales fell to 4,261 units in 1990 and 2,240 through July 1991, which caused the company to cease its U.S. and Canada operations after 33 years. There are no plans to return to the U.S. market.

In 1997, just six years after pulling out of both United States and Canadian markets, Peugeot returned to Mexico after a 36-year absence, under the Chile–Mexico Free Trade Agreement. Peugeot models (1992–present) cannot be bought or imported into the United States from Mexico.

2000s to present

Peugeot 407 coupé, 2006

Peugeot 3008, 2010 Semperit Irish Car of the Year and 2010 Car of the Year in Italy

On 18 April 2006, PSA Peugeot Citroën announced the closure of the Ryton manufacturing facility in Coventry, England. This announcement resulted in the loss of 2,300 jobs, as well as about 5,000 jobs in the supply chain. The plant produced its last Peugeot 206 on 12 December 2006, and finally closed down in January 2007.

Peugeot is a long way from its ambitious target of selling 4 million units annually by the end of the decade. In 2008, its sales stayed below the 2 million mark. In mid-2009, “adverse market and industry conditions” were blamed for falls in sales and operating losses. Christian Streiff was replaced by Philippe Varin (CEO) and Jean-Pierre Ploué (head of design) was transferred from his post at Citroën. In 2009, Peugeot returned to the Canadian market with the scooter brand only.

Peugeot still plans on developing new models to compete in segments where it currently does not compete. Collin claimed that the French automaker competed in 72% of market segments in 2007, but he wanted to get that figure up to 90%. Despite Peugeot’s sportscar racing program, the company is not prepared to build a pure sportscar any more hardcore than the RC Z sports-coupe. It is also pursuing government funding to develop a diesel-hybrid drivetrain, which might be key to its expansion.

By 2010, Peugeot planned on pursuing new markets, mainly in China, Russia, and South America. In 2011 it decided to re-enter India after 14 years with a new factory at Sanand, Gujarat.

Peugeot re-entered the Philippines in 2012 after having a short presence in 2005 with distribution done by the Alvarez Group.

In March 2012, General Motors purchased a 7% share in Peugeot for 320 million euros as part of a cooperation aimed at finding savings through joint purchasing and product development. In December 2013, GM sold its entire Peugeot stake, taking a loss of about 70 million euros.

In October 2013, Peugeot closed their production plant at Aulnay-sous-Bois as part of a restructuring plan to reduce overcapacity in the face of a shrinking domestic market. By December 2013, Chinese investors were rumoured to be potential investors. In February 2014, the Peugeot family agreed to give up control of the company by reducing its holdings from 25% to 14%. As part of this agreement, Dongfeng Motors and the French government were each to buy 14% stakes in the company, creating three partners with equal voting rights. The board of directors was to be composed of six independent members, two representatives of each Dongfeng, the French state and the Peugeot family, and two members representing employees and employees shareholders. The French government took the view the deal did not require approval by Brussels as EU competition rules do not count public investment in a company on the same terms as a private investor as state aid. The equity participation by Dongfeng expanded an already budding relationship with Peugeot. The pair at the time were jointly operating three car-manufacturing plants in China, with a capacity of producing 750,000 vehicles a year. In July 2014, the joint venture, Dongfeng Peugeot-Citroën, disclosed they were building a fourth factory in China in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, targeting the manufacture of 300,000 sport-utility and multipurpose vehicles a year, starting towards the end of 2016. In January 2015, Indian multinational automotive giant Mahindra & Mahindra purchased a major stake of 51% of Peugeot Motocycles for a price of 28 million euro.

Factories

A Peugeot dealership

PSA plants

• France (PSA Poissy Plant): 206 Plus, 208, 1007
• France (PSA Mulhouse Plant): 206 Plus, 208, 308
• France (PSA Sochaux Plant): 308, 3008, 5008
• France (PSA Rennes Plant): 508
• Argentina (Buenos Aires): 206 Plus (aka 207), 308, 408
• Brazil (Porto Real): 208, 2008
• Portugal (Mangualde): Partner Origin
• Slovakia (PSA Trnava Plant): 208
• Spain (Madrid): 207 Plus, 207 CC
• Spain (PSA Vigo Plant): Partner, 301

Joint venture and outsourced plants

• Austria (Graz under contract by Magna Steyr): RCZ
• China (Wuhan), joint venture Dongfeng Peugeot-Citroën: 206 Plus, 307, 308, 408, 508
• Czech Republic (Kolín), Toyota Peugeot Citroën Automobile Czech: 107, 108
• France (joint venture Sevel Nord near Valenciennes): Expert
• Iran (Tehran) Iran Khodro: 206, 206 Sedan, 206 plus, 405, 406
• Italy (Val di Sangro), joint venture Sevel: Boxer
• Japan, (Mizushima) under contract by Mitsubishi Motors: iOn
• Malaysia (Gurun, Kedah) assembly under contract to Naza Automotive Manufacturing: 308, 3008, 408, 508
• Russia (Kaluga), joint venture Peugeot Citroën Mitsubishi Automotiv: 4007, 408
• Turkey (Bursa), under contract by Tofaş: Bipper

Vehicles

Peugeot 208, Car of the Year in Italy and Spain

Peugeot 2008, Car of the Year in Italy

Peugeot 308, 2014 Car of the year in Europe

Peugeot 508 SW HYbrid4

Awards

European Car of the Year

Peugeot has produced four winners of the European Car of the Year award.

• 1969 – Peugeot 504
• 1988 – Peugeot 405
• 2002 – Peugeot 307
• 2014 – Peugeot 308

Four other Peugeot models got either second or third in the contest.

• 1980 – Peugeot 505
• 1984 – Peugeot 205
• 1996 – Peugeot 406
• 1999 – Peugeot 206

Semperit Irish Car of the Year award

Peugeot has produced two Car of the Year award winners in Ireland since 1978. It is judged by the Irish Motoring Writers Association (IMWA).

• 1997 – Peugeot 406
• 2010 – Peugeot 3008

Car of the Year award in Italy

Peugeot S.A. has produced four “Car of the Year Auto Europa” award winners in Italy in 28 years, since 1987. “Auto Europa” is the prize awarded by the jury of the Italian Union of Automotive Journalists (UIGA), which annually celebrates the best car produced at least at 10,000 units in the 27 countries of the European Union, and sold between September and August the previous year.

• 2007 – Peugeot 207
• 2010 – Peugeot 3008
• 2013 – Peugeot 208
• 2014 – Peugeot 2008
• 2015 – Peugeot 308

Car of the Year award in Spain

Peugeot S.A. has produced nine Car of the year award winners in Spain in 40 years, since 1974.

1981 – Talbot Horizon1985 – Peugeot 2051999 – Peugeot 2062002 – Peugeot 3072005 – Peugeot 4072006 – Peugeot 10072007 – Peugeot 2072012 – Peugeot 5082013 – Peugeot 208

Numbers

104 (1972)106 (1991)107 (2005)108 (2014)201 (1929)202 (1938)203 (1948)204 (1965)205 (1983)206 (1998)207 (2006)208 (2012)

1935 Peugeot 301D302 (1936)304 (1969)305 (1977)306 (1993)

307 (2001)308 (2007)309 (1985)301 (2012)401 (1934)402 (1935)403 (1955)

404 (1960)

405 (1987)406 (1995)407 (2004)408 (2010)504 (1968)505 (1979)508 (2010)601 (1934)604 (1975)605 (1989)607 (1999)806 (1994)807 (2002)905 1993908 20111007 (2004)2008 (2013)3008 (2008)4007 (2007)4008 (2012)5008 (2009)

Others

Bipper

BoxerDMA/DMAHD3/D3AD4/D4AExpertHoggar (a pickup designed and manufactured in Brazil since 2010)J5J7

J9

P4Pars (also known as Persia)PartnerRCZ (2010)Type 15VLViOn

Electric and hybrid vehicles

Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4, UK model

See also: Peugeot HYbrid4

Peugeot presented a new concept hybrid electric sports sedan at the 2008 Paris Motor Show called the Peugeot RC HYmotion4. Similar to the drivetrain model used in the upcoming Chevrolet Volt, the RC concept promises the ability to run solely on electric power for extended periods, with a hybrid electric powertrain filling in the gaps when extra range is needed. The RC HYmotion4 includes a 70-kW electric motor at the front wheels. The Peugeot Prologue HYmotion4 was also shown at the 2008 Paris show and is in many ways the opposite of the RC HYmotion4 concept. The Prologue puts the internal combustion engine up front and runs on diesel instead of gasoline, with the electric motor going at the back.

The Peugeot BB1 is an electric concept car with in-wheel motors in its rear wheels first shown in September 2009 at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

In 2010, Peugeot started selling the electric Peugeot iOn, a rebadged and revised version of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV.

Peugeot VELV electric concept car was presented on 26 September 2011.

Motorsport

Main article: Peugeot Sport

Early

Jules Goux wins Indianapolis

Peugeot wins the 1913 Indianapolis 500

Peugeot was involved in motorsport from the earliest days and entered five cars for the Paris-Rouen Trials in 1894 with one of them, driven by Lemaître, finishing second. These trials are usually regarded as the first motor sporting competition. Participation in a variety of events continued until World War I, but in 1912, Peugeot made its most notable contribution to motor sporting history when one of their cars, driven by Georges Boillot, won the French Grand Prix at Dieppe. This revolutionary car was powered by a straight-4 engine designed by Ernest Henry under the guidance of the technically knowledgeable racing drivers Paul Zuccarelli and Georges Boillot. The design was very influential for racing engines as it featured for the first time DOHC and four valves per cylinder, providing for high engine speeds, a radical departure from previous racing engines which relied on huge displacement for power. In 1913, Peugeots of similar design to the 1912 Grand Prix car won the French Grand Prix at Amiens and the Indianapolis 500. When one of the Peugeot racers remained in the United States during World War I and parts could not be acquired from France for the 1914 season, owner Bob Burman had it serviced in the shop of Harry Miller by a young mechanic named Fred Offenhauser. Their familiarity with the Peugeot engine was the basis of the famed Miller racing engine, which later developed into the Offenhauser.

Peugeot 405 Turbo 16, 1989 and 1990 winner of the Dakar Rally, with Ari Vatanen

Rallying

Peugeot Sport is one of the most successful winners in rallying, along with Citroën Racing (eight-time WRC winner), by winning five times the World Rally Championship Manufacturer’s Title (1985-1986, 2000-2002), four times the Dakar Rally (1987-1990), three times the European Rally Championship (2002-2003, 2008), three times the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (2007-2009).

Peugeot’s East African importers had a very impressive record in rallying in the 1960s; Nick Nowicki and Paddy Cliff won the East African Safari in 1963 with a Marshall’s-entered 404 sedan. In 1966 and 1967, Tanzania‘s Tanganyika Motors entered the winning 404 Injection sedan, piloted by the late Bert Shanlkand and Chris Rothwell. They might have won again in 1968, but while in second place, their engine blew and ultimately Nick Nowicki and Paddy Cliff upheld Peugeot’s honour by winning the rally. Peugeot also won the Safari Rally in 1975 (Andersson in a 504 Injection sedan) and in 1978 (Nicolas in a 504 Coupé V6), both cars being factory team entries.

Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, 1985 and 1986 winner of the World Rally Championship

 

Peugeot also had further success in international rallying, most notably in the World Rally Championship with the four-wheel-drive turbo-charged versions of the Peugeot 205, and more recently the Peugeot 206. In 1981, Jean Todt, former co-driver for Hannu Mikkola, Timo Mäkinen, and Guy Fréquelin, among others, was asked by Jean Boillot, the head of Automobiles Peugeot, to create a competition department for PSA Peugeot Citroën. The resulting Peugeot Talbot Sport, established at Bois de Boulogne near Paris, debuted its Group B 205 Turbo 16 at the 1984 Tour de Corse in May, and took its first world rally win that same year at the 1000 Lakes Rally in August, in the hands of Ari Vatanen. Excluding an endurance rally where Peugeot were not participating, Vatanen went on win five world rallies in a row.

Peugeot’s domination continued in the 1985 season. Despite Vatanen’s nearly fatal accident in Argentina, in the middle of the season, his team-mate and compatriot Timo Salonen led Peugeot to its first drivers’ and manufacturers’ world championship titles, well ahead of Audi and their Audi Sport Quattro. In the 1986 season, Vatanen’s young replacement Juha Kankkunen beat Lancia‘s Markku Alén to the drivers’ title and Peugeot took its second manufacturers’ title ahead of Lancia. Following FIA‘s banning of Group B cars for 1987, in May after Henri Toivonen‘s fatal accident, Todt was outraged and even (unsuccessfully) pursued legal action against the federation. Peugeot then switched to rally raids. Using the 205 and a 405, Peugeot won the Dakar Rally four times in a row from 1987 to 1990; three times with Vatanen and once with Kankkunen. In 2015 Peugeot again took part in the Rally Dakar with a newly constructed buggy. For the 2016 Paris-Dakar, Peugeot presented a new team of drivers including 9-time WRC-champion Sébastien Loeb and 12-time Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel who managed to win the 2016 edition for the Peugeot factory team in the Peugeot 2008 DKR

Peugeot 206 WRC, winner of the World Rally Championship from 2000 to 2002

In 1999, Peugeot returned to the World Rally Championship with the 206 WRC. The car was immediately competitive against such opposition as the Subaru Impreza WRC, the Ford Focus WRC, and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Marcus Grönholm gave the car its first win at the 2000 Swedish Rally, and Peugeot went on to win the manufacturers’ title in their first full year since the return, and Grönholm the drivers’ title in his first full WRC season. After successfully but narrowly defending their manufacturers’ title in 2001, Peugeot Sport dominated the 2002 season, taking eight wins in the hands of Grönholm and Gilles Panizzi. Grönholm also took the drivers’ title. For the 2004 season, Peugeot retired the 206 WRC in favour of the new 307 WRC. The 307 WRC did not match its predecessor in success, but Grönholm took three wins with the car, one in 2004 and two in 2005. PSA Peugeot Citroën withdrew Peugeot from the WRC after the 2005 season, while Citroën took a sabbatical year in 2006 and returned for the next season. Meanwhile, Gronholm departed Peugeot when they quit at the end of 2005 to partner young compatriot Mikko Hirvonen at Ford.

Peugeot 207 S2000, winner of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge from 2007 to 2009.

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Touring car racing

In 2009 and 2011, Peugeot won the Stock Car V8 championship with Cacá Bueno (here Luciano Burti)

In 2013, the Peugeot 208 GTi won a one-two-three at the 24 Hours Nürburgring endurance race.

The Peugeot 306 GTi won the prestigious Spa 24 hours endurance race in 1999 and 2000.

Peugeot has been racing successfully in the Asian Touring Car Series series, winning the 2000, 2001, and 2002 championships with the Peugeot 306 GTi.

Peugeot has been racing successfully in the Stock Car Brasil series since 2007 and won the 2008, 2009, and 2011 championships.

Peugeot won five times the Danish Touringcar Championship, with both the Peugeot 306 -winner in 1999, 2000 and 2001- and the Peugeot 307 winner in 2002 and 2003.

With his Peugeot 406, Laurent Aiello won the 1997 Super Tourenwagen Cup season.

Throughout the mid-1990s, the Peugeot 406 saloon (called a sedan in some countries) contested touring car championships across the world, enjoying success in France, Germany and Australia, yet failing to win a single race in the British Touring Car Championship despite a number of podium finishes under the command of 1992 British Touring Car Champion Tim Harvey. In Gran Turismo 2 the 406 saloon description sums its racing career up as “a competitive touring car which raced throughout Europe”.

Tim Harvey in a 406 during the 1996 BTCC season

The British cars were initially prepared by Peugeot Sport; a team from the Peugeot UK factory in Coventry under the direction of team manager Mick Linford in 1996, with Total sponsorship. Peugeot Sport was not however a full professional race team akin to those of the competition, by now including Williams, Prodrive, Schnitzer and TWR; being as it was run from workshops within the Peugeot factory, largely by factory employees from 1992-1996, racing the 405 Mi16 from 1992-95. Peugeot therefore contracted Motor Sport Development (MSD; who had developed and run the Honda Accord in the BTCC from 1995-1996) to build & run the 406 for 1997-98, when they wore a distinctive green and gold-flame design in deference to new sponsor Esso.

Initially the 406’s lack of success was blamed on suspension problems. During 1998 the 406 apparently lacked sufficient horsepower to compete with the front runners’ Nissan Primeras and Honda Accords; this was mentioned during a particularly strong showing from Harvey’s 406 at the Oulton Park BTCC meeting of 1998, when motorsport commentator Charlie Cox stated “some people say (the 406) is down on power – you’re kidding”. During the first BTCC meeting at Silverstone in the same year, Cox mentions that MSD re-designed the 406 touring car “from the ground up”. It was however widely reported in publications like the now-defunct ‘Super Touring’ magazine that it was the aero package primarily developed for longer, faster tracks in Germany and France that led to its success there, but hindered the 406 on the slower, twistier tracks of the UK.

In 2001, Peugeot entered three BTC-T Peugeot 406 Coupés into the British Touring Car Championship to compete with the dominant Vauxhall Astra coupes. Unfortunately the 406 coupe was at the end of its product lifecycleand was not competitive, despite some promise towards the end of the year, notably when Peugeot’s Steve Soper led a race only to suffer engine failure in the last few laps. The 406 coupes were retired at the end of the following year and replaced with the Peugeot 307—again, uncompetitively—in 2003. Alongside the BTC-C 406’s; two works-supported 306 GTis were also raced in the BTC-P (Production) class by Simon Harrison and Roger Moen, with Harrison emerging class champion.

Sports car racing

The 908 HDi FAP sports prototype, driven by Jacques Villeneuve in 2007

In the 1990s the company competed in endurance racing, including the World Sportscar Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans race with the 905. The sportscar team was established at Vélizy-Villacoublay, France. After early problems with reliability and aerodynamics, the 905 was successful in the World Sportscar Championship, winning eight of the 14 races across the 1991 and 1992 seasons and winning the team and driver titles in 1992. Peugeot also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1992 and 1993.

Peugeot returned to sportscar racing and Le Mans in 2007 with the diesel-powered Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. At the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans, Stéphane Sarrazin secured pole position but the 908s proved unreliable and ceded victory to Audi. In 2008, the Sarrazin again earned a pole position but Audi prevailed once again. For the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Peugeot 908 HDi FAPs finished first and second overall, led by drivers Marc Gené, David Brabham, and Alexander Wurz.

Pike’s Peak Hillclimb

Ari Vatanen‘s Pikes Peak Peugeot 405

After Ari Vatanen and Bobby Unser, in the late 1980s, won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Peugeot Sport and Sébastien Loeb decided to unite their respective strengths and go for it. The Ari Vatanen performance won several awards with the “Climb Dance” films (Grand Prix du film de Chamonix 1990, Gold Award at International Film Festival in Houston, Silver Screen of the US Industrial Film & Video Festival in Chicago, 1990 Prix spécial du Jury at the Festival International du Film d’aventure in Val d’Isère).

In April 2013, a 208 T16 was tested by Sébastien Loeb at Mont Ventoux. Loosely based on the shape and design of the production 208, the T16 is a lightweight 875 kg (1,929 lb) vehicle that uses the rear wing from the Peugeot 908, and has a 3.2-litre, twin-turbo V6 engine, developing 875 bhp (652 kW; 887 PS) with the aim of competing at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. 30 June 2013 saw this car demolish the standing record on Pikes Peak by over a minute and a half, with an overall time of 8:13.878.

Formula One

The company has also been involved in providing engines to Formula One teams, notably to McLaren in 1994, to Jordan for the 1995, 1996 and 1997 seasons, and to Prost for the 1998, 1999 and 2000 seasons. Peugeot’s F1 interests were sold to Asiatech at the end of the 2000 season.

Concept cars

• Quasar (1984)
• Proxima (1986)
• Oxia (1988)
• Ion (1994)
• Touareg (1996)
• Asphalte (1996)
• 806 Runabout (1997)
• 20♥ (1998)
• Escapade (1998)
• Les City Toyz (2000)
• Peugeot 607 Feline (2000)
• Peugeot 607 Paladine (2000)
• Peugeot Sésame (2002)
• 607 Pescarolo (2002)
• 3♥7 CC (2002)
• H2O (2002)
• Peugeot RC (2002)
• Peugeot Hoggar (2003)
• Peugeot 407 Elixir (2003)
• Peugeot 4002 (2003)
• 407 Silhouette (2004)
• Peugeot Quark (2004)
• Peugeot 907 (2004)
• Peugeot Coupé 407 Prologue (2005)
• Peugeot 20Cup (2005)
• Peugeot 908 RC (2006)
• Spider 207 (2006)
• Peugeot RC HYbrid4 HYmotion4 (2008)
• Peugeot RD (2008)
• Peugeot BB1 (2009)
• Peugeot EX1 Concept (2010)
• Peugeot HR1 (2010)
• Peugeot SR1 (2010)
• Peugeot 5 by Peugeot (2010)
• Peugeot HX1 (2011)
• Peugeot SXC (2011)
• Peugeot Onyx (2012)
• Peugeot Exalt (2014)
• Peugeot Quartz (2014)

• 

  Peugeot 908 RC, 2006

• 

  Peugeot RC Hybrid4, 2008

• 

  Peugeot SR1, 2010

• 

  Peugeot HX1, 2011

• 

  Peugeot Onyx, 2012

Motorcycles

Peugeot Elyséo 125, ‘Roland Garros’ (2002)

Peugeot Satelis 125

Main article: Peugeot Motorcycles

Peugeot Motorcycles company remains a major producer of scooters, underbones, mopeds, and bicycles in Europe. Peugeot produced an electric motor scooter, the Peugeot Scoot’Elec, from 1996 to 2006, and is projected to re-enter the market in 2011 with the E-Vivacity.

Bicycles

Main article: Peugeot (bicycles)

Peugeot also produced bicycles starting in 1882 in Beaulieu, France (with ten Tour de France wins between 1903 and 1983), followed by motorcycles and cars in 1889. In the late 1980s Peugeot sold the North American rights to the Peugeot bicycle name to ProCycle, a Canadian company which also sold bicycles under the CCM and Velo Sport names. The European rights were briefly sold to Cycleurope S.A., returning to Peugeot in the 1990s.

Peugeot Avenue

Peugeot has flagship dealerships, named Peugeot Avenue, located on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and in Berlin. The Berlin showroom is larger than the Paris one, but both feature regularly changing mini-exhibitions displaying production and concept cars. Both also feature a small Peugeot Boutique, and they are popular places for Peugeot fans to visit. Peugeot Avenue Berlin also features a café, called Café de France. The Peugeot Avenue at Berlin closed in 2009.

See also

	Paris portal
	Companies portal

• French bicycle industry
• List of automobile manufacturers
• List of companies of France
• Peugeot Concours Design

References

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30. Jump up^ Darke, p.1686 & 1688.
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50. Jump up^ FT 19 February 2014 “Lossmaking Peugeot confirms €3bn deal with Dongfeng and France By Michael Stothard in Paris and Henry Foy in London”
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58. Jump up^ “Peugeot Shows Two HYbrid4 Concepts, New BB1 EV Concept at Frankfurt”. Green Car Congress. 15 September 2009. Retrieved 31 May2010.
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External links

• International Peugeot Automobile website
• UK Peugeot Scooter website
• Canadian Peugeot Scooter website
• Peugeot Mills
• Peugeot at DMOZ
• The Peugeot Museum at Sochaux
• The Peugeot Sport Official Owners Clu
  b

https://myntransportblog.com/2015/01/08/peugeot-ambulances-firebrigade-and-hearses-france/

RAMBLER automobile Kenosha Wisconsin USA Part I

Rambler (automobile)

Rambler logo, 1960s

Rambler was an automobile brand name used by the

Thomas B. Jeffery Company

Thomas B. Jeffery Company

The Thomas B. Jeffery Company was an American automobile manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin from 1902 until 1916. The company manufactured the Rambler and Jeffery brand motorcars. It was preceded by the Gormully & Jeffery Manufacturing Company, a bicycle manufacturer. It was the parent company to Nash Motors, thus one of the parent companies of American Motors and Chrysler.

Thomas B. Jeffery

 Thomas B. Jeffery

 Thomas B. Jeffery and his 1897 Rambler prototype

Thomas B. Jeffery was an inventor and an industrialist. He was one of America’s first entrepreneurs interested in automobiles in the late 19th century. In 1897, he built his first prototype motorcar. Thomas B. Jeffery was serious enough about automobiles to sell his stake in Gormully & Jeffery to the American Bicycle Company to finance the new car company.

Business

 Charles T. Jeffery driving a 1901 Rambler model A

Charles T. Jeffery (left) Charles W. Nash (right)

Charles T. Jeffery‘s (Thomas’ son) experimental prototypes of 1901 (Models A & B) used at least two radical innovations – steering wheels and front-mounted engines. By the time Charles was ready for production in 1902, his father had talked him out of these wild dreams and convinced him to stick with tillers and engines under the seat.

From 1902 until 1908, Jeffery moved steadily to bigger, more reliable models. Jeffery cars were built on assembly lines (the second manufacturer to adopt them — Ransom E. Olds was first), and in 1903 Jeffery sold 1,350 Ramblers. By 1905, Jeffery more than doubled this number. One reason may have been because Charles went back to the steering wheel before 1904. In 1907, Jeffery was building a large variety of different body styles and sizes. Among them was a five-passenger, US$ 2,500 Rambler weighing 2,600 pounds (1179 kg) and powered by a 40-horsepower (30 kW) engine.

In April, 1910, Thomas B. Jeffery, died in Pompeii, Italy and in June of that year the business was incorporated under the name of the Thomas B. Jeffery Company, with Charles T. Jeffery as the president and general manager, H. W. Jeffery, vice president and treasurer.

In 1915, Charles T. Jeffery, changed the automotive branding from Rambler to Jeffery to honor the founder, his father, Thomas B. Jeffery.

As of 1916, G. H. Eddy replaced H.W. Jeffery as the treasurer so H.W. Jeffery could focus on the position of vice president. G. W. Greiner was the secretary, L. H. Bill the general manager, J. W. DeCou the factory manager, and Al Recke was the sales manager.

Charles T. Jeffery survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (a British luxury liner torpedoed by the Germans in World War I) in 1915 and decided to spend the rest of his life in a more enjoyable manner. Charles W. Nash resigned from General Motors, saw an opportunity and bought the Thomas B. Jeffery Company in August 1916.

The Factory

The sprawling Jeffery works circa 1915

Jeffery factory building

Jeffery company employees

Jeffery, with the money from his sale of Gormully & Jeffery, bought the old Sterling Bicycle Company’s factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The original factory building was only 600 x 100 feet (183 x 30 m) in size. However, by 1916, the company’s buildings expanded over 20 acres (8 ha) under roof and the facilities had grown to over 100 acres (40 ha) including a test track.

Jeffery Quad

Main article: Jeffery Quad

The Jeffrey Quad, also known as the Nash Quad or Quad is a four-wheel drive truck that was developed and built in Kenosha from 1913, and after 1916, by Nash Motors, as well as under license by other truck makers.. The Quad introduced numerous engineering innovations. Its design and durability proved effective in traversing the muddy, rough, and unpaved roads of the times. The Quad also became one of the effective work vehicles in World War I. The Quad was also one of the first successful four-wheel drive vehicles ever to be made, and its production continued unchanged through 1928, or 15 years, with a total of 41,674 units made.

Timeline

1897 – Jeffery builds a rear-engine Rambler prototype using the Rambler name previously used on a highly successful line of bicycles made by Gormully & Jeffery.

1899 – Positive reviews at the 1899 Chicago International Exhibition & Tournament and the first National Automobile Show in New York City prompt the Jefferys to enter the automobile business.

1900 (Dec 6) – Thomas B. Jeffery finalizes a US$65,000 deal to buy the Kenosha, Wisconsin, factory of the defunct Sterling Bicycle with money from the sale of his interest in Gormully & Jeffery.

1901 – Two more prototypes, Models A and B, are made.

1902 – First production Ramblers – the US$ 750 Model C open runabout and the $850 Model D (the same car with a folding top). Both are powered by an 8-horsepower (6 kW; 8 PS), 98-cubic-inch (1.6 L) one-cylinder engine mounted beneath the seat, and are steered by a right-side tiller. First-year production totals 1,500 units making Jeffery the second-largest car maker behind Oldsmobile.

1910 (Mar 21) – Thomas B. Jeffery dies while on vacation in Italy.

1910 (Jun 10) – Charles incorporates the firm as a $3 million (US$75,932,143 in 2015 dollars) public stock company.

1914 – The Rambler name is replaced with the Jeffery moniker in honor of the founder.

1916 (Aug) – Charles Jeffery sells the company to former General Motors Corp. President Charles W. Nash.

1917 – Charles Nash renames the Jeffery Motor Company, Nash Motors after himself.

Rambler was an automobile brand name used by the

between 1900 and 1914, then by its successor, Nash Motors from 1950 to 1954, and finally by Nash’s successor, American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1969. It was often nicknamed the “Kenosha Cadillac” after its place of manufacture.

1897-1914

 Rambler 6HP Runabout 1903

 Rambler 6 1/2HP Runabout 1903

 Rambler 7HP Rear-entrance tonneau 1904

1905 Rambler

 1908 Rambler advertisement

 1913 Rambler 5-passenger touring car

The first use of the name Rambler for an American made automobile dates to 1897 when Thomas B. Jeffery of Chicago, Illinois and builder of the Rambler bicycle, constructed his first prototype automobile.

After receiving positive reviews at the 1899 Chicago International Exhibition & Tournament and the first National Automobile Show in New York City, Jeffery decided to enter the automobile business. In 1900, he bought the old Sterling Bicycle Co. factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and set up shop.

Jeffery started commercially mass-producing automobiles in 1902 and by the end of the year had produced 1,500 motorcars, one-sixth of all existing in the USA at the time. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company was the second largest auto manufacturer at that time, (behind Oldsmobile).

Rambler experimented such early technical innovations as a steering wheel (as opposed to a tiller), but it was decided that such features were too advanced for the motoring public of the day, so the first production Ramblers were tiller-steered. Rambler innovated various design features and was the first to equip cars with a spare wheel-and-tire assembly. This allowed the driver, when experiencing a common puncture (flat tires) to exchange the spare wheel & tire for the flat one.

In 1914, Charles T. Jeffery, Thomas B. Jeffery’s son, replaced the Rambler brand name with Jeffery in honor of his now deceased father.

In 1916, the Thomas B. Jeffery Company was purchased by Charles W. Nash and became Nash Motors Company in 1917. The Jeffery brand name was dropped at the time of the sale and the manufacture of Nash branded automobiles commenced. In 1937, the concern became the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation through a merger with the well-known appliance maker.

1950-1957

 Nash Rambler served as the platform for the first generation Rambler American

Main article: Nash Rambler

Under the direction of Charles Nash’s successor George W. Mason, Nash-Kelvinator Corporation began development of a small car that could be produced inexpensively for the post World War II economy.

However, steel shortages limited the amount of raw materials that Nash could get, so Mason turned the compact, now designated the Rambler, into a two-door sedan with a convertible top and the cars were equipped with many standard features that were typically options, to maximize profits for the company. When introduced, the Rambler was an immediate success for Nash. As steel quotas (related to the Korean War) eased, the Rambler line was broadened in both its model types (first a station wagon and 2-door hardtop dubbed “Country Club”, and later a 2-door sedan. A further expansion of the line for 1954 included a four-door sedan and station wagon called “Cross Country”) on a stretched wheelbase, which proved to be as successful as the first generation of two-door sedan convertibles.

The first generation of modern Ramblers carried a modified version of Nash’s Airflyte styling, which included closed wheel openings. Where the wheel openings of any car are a major source of wind resistance, the design was rather primarily an engineering design to increase the strength of the car for impact resistance. Many people surmised that the skirted fenders limited the turning radius of the wheels but was not an actual handicap for having a comparatively narrow front track. Ramblers continued to use this styling until 1955, when the front wheels were revealed by a periodic design update. In 1954 the Rambler offered the first industry combination heating and air conditioning unit that could be an add-on or installed at the factory for $395.00, which at that time was about the lowest cost unit available in an American car.

In 1954, American Motors Corporation (AMC) was formed from the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and the Hudson Motor Car Company. Following the merger, 1955 and 1956 Ramblers were badged as both Nashes and Hudsons, with no visible difference between the two. Rambler became a marque in its own right for the 1957 model year. The Nash and Hudson makes were continued as senior model only through 1957, after which all of AMC’s offerings were marketed as Ramblers, with the exception of the imported 1958-1962 Metropolitan.

1958-1969

 1958 Rambler sedan

 1963 Rambler Classic 660 Cross Country station wagon

 1965 Rambler Classic 660 Cross Country station wagon

 Train unloading 1958 Ramblers for a car rental company in Florida.

At the start of the 1960s George Romney made a marketing decision that more fully unified the various Rambler model names under the Rambler brand. In 1962, the Ambassador, a top-trim level model, was officially brought under the Rambler name (it had previously been named the “Ambassador by Rambler”), and the former Rambler Six and Rambler Rebel V8 were renamed the Rambler Classic. (Note: while the top-line models for 1958-1961 were advertised as the “Ambassador V-8 by Rambler”, on the cars themselves, the nomenclature was “Rambler Ambassador”.) Back in 1958, AMC introduced America’s first “compact car,” the Rambler American. This car was essentially the 1950 Nash Rambler, slightly restyled and modernized for the late 1950s. However the car was an instant success and lost sales only after the “Big Three” (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) each introduced compact cars of their own.

Romney also put into play his plan to slash production costs, which involved more common parts sharing between the Ambassador and Classic models. Beginning in 1962, all “senior” Rambler models would share the same automobile platform with identical wheelbase and body parts, but the engines, trims, and equipment levels distinguished the Classic from the Ambassador. The Rambler’s compact size (by US standards) also made it an international competitor, and between 1961 and 1965 AMC opened thirteen foreign assembly plants, from Costa Rica to the Philippines.

In 1963, the entire Rambler line received the Motor Trend Car of the Year award. However, Romney’s departure to become Michigan governor opened the door for his successor, Roy Abernethy, to redirect the company towards a strategy of competing head to head with the Big Three (General Motors, Chrysler Corporation, and Ford Motor Company) with a variety of bodies and automobile platforms. This new plan also included marketing the various models apart from the Rambler brand name, which Abernethy felt would be a hindrance in the market segments he hoped to pursue.

One of the first moves in that direction was the creation of the 1965 line of Ramblers, which split the Classic from the Ambassador visually, while still sharing a significant number of parts. Once again the Ambassador had a unique, extended wheelbase. In addition, AMC introduced the Marlin, a hardtop coupe intended to give AMC a toe-hold in the sporty fastback market while also functioning as a “halo” vehicle. AMC chief stylist Richard Teague introduced a totally restyled and attractive Rambler American in 1964, which was a sales success. This basic body remained in its original shape through 1969.

Backed by marketing reports, Abernethy next made a persuasive argument to the AMC board that the Rambler name had not only acquired a stodgy image and was a hindrance to increasing sales, but that consumers associated it with compact cars. In what hindsight would show to be an ill-conceived decision, American Motors began to phase it out in favor of an AMC marque beginning in 1966, as it attempted to become a multiplatform automobile manufacturer. Retention of the well-known Rambler brand name and its association with compact economy models could have served AMC well in the 1970s.

By 1968, the only vehicle produced by AMC to carry the Rambler marque, was the compact Rambler American. Although designed as a no-nonsense economy car, the American spawned the audacious SC/Ramblerdeveloped with Hurst Performance. While AMC planned to produce only 500 for the 1969 model year, the “Scrambler” proved so popular two more groups of about 500 each were built. All featured the same 390 cu in (6.4 l) V8, four-barrel carburetor, and close-ratio four-speed transmission of the AMX, plus Hurst shifter, Twin-Grip (limited slip) differential, and cold air hood. For the final year in 1969 the models were simply called Rambler. The 1969 Rambler (and Chevrolet Corvair and Dodge Dart) were the only U.S. compact cars available that year in a two-door hardtop body style; Ford compacts were only available as sedans.

The last U.S. built Rambler was produced on 30 June 1969, and it was one of over 4.2 million cars to carry the Rambler name that rolled off the assembly line in Kenosha.

1970–1983

The Rambler marque was continued in numerous international markets. Examples include contemporary versions of the AMC Hornet, AMC Javelin and AMC Matador assembled in Australia by Australian Motor Industries(AMI) from complete knock down (CKD) kits which continued to be badged as Ramblers until 1978.

The Rambler nameplate was last used on automobiles in 1983 by Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) in Mexico.

In Argentina, Rambler passenger cars were assembled by Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA) commencing 1962. A special model based on the third generation Rambler American became the IKA Torino in 1967. It later was named the Renault Torino and was offered until 1980. However, U.S. Rambler Classic and Ambassador models were also assembled in Argentina through 1972.

Rambler brand cars

Historic

• Rambler: 1901 – 1913

Compact

• Nash Rambler: 1950 – 1956

Nash Rambler

Nash Rambler
1952 Nash Rambler Custom station wagon
Overview
Manufacturer	Nash Motors (1950-1954) American Motors (1954-1955)
Production	1950–55
Assembly	United States: Kenosha, Wisconsin El Segundo, California
Designer	Meade Moore (chief engineer) Theodore Ulrich (body & styling)
Body and chassis
Class	Compact
Layout	FR layout
Chronology
Successor	Rambler American

The Nash Rambler is a North American automobile that was produced by the Nash Motors division of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation from 1950 to 1954. On May 1, 1954, Nash-Kelvinator merged with the Hudson Motor Car Company to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). The Nash Rambler was then built by AMC in Kenosha, Wisconsin through 1955.

The Nash Rambler established a new segment in the automobile market and is widely acknowledged to be the first successful modern American compact car.

The 1950-1955 Nash Rambler was the first model run for this automobile platform. Using the same tooling, AMC reintroduced an almost identical “new” 1958 Rambler American for a second model run. This was a rare feat of having two distinct and successful model runs, an almost unheard of phenomenon in automobile history.

Development

Nash-Kelvinator’s President George W. Mason saw that the company needed to compete more effectively and insisted a new car had to be different from the existing models in the market offered by the “Big Three” U.S. automakers. The Rambler was designed to be smaller than contemporary cars, yet still accommodate five passengers comfortably. Nash engineers had originally penned the styling during World War II.

The new model was the company’s entry in the lower-price segment dominated by models from Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth (automobile). The Rambler was designed to be lighter and have smaller dimensions than the other popular cars. A strategy of efficiency, Nash could save on materials in its production while owners would have better fuel economy compared to the other cars of the era. The Nash Rambler rode on a 100 in (2,540 mm) wheelbase, and power came from Nash’s proven 173 cu in (2.8 L) L-head (flathead)Straight-6 cylinder engine that produced 82 hp (61 kW; 83 PS).

Following the design of the larger “senior” Nash models, the compact Rambler’s styling was rounded in form and also had an envelope body with fender skirts that also enclosed the front wheels. This design feature did not impair the car’s cornering ability significantly.

1950 Nash Rambler Custom Landau Convertible Coupe

The compact Rambler line was designed with several body styles, but the inaugural year was limited to a single model: a fully equipped 2-door convertible. The decision to bring the new car out first in a higher market segment with more standard features was a calculated risk by Mason. Foremost in this strategy was the need to give the new Rambler a positive public image. Mason knew the car would fail if seen by the public as a “cheap little car”. This was confirmed in small car comparisons in the media that described the “well-equipped and stylish, the little Rambler is economical and easy to drive” with no “stripped-down” versions, but in only high end convertible, station wagon, or hardtop (no “B-pillar”) body styles. He knew what Crosley was just finding out with its line of mini cars, and what the Henry J would teach Kaiser Motors; namely, that Americans would rather buy a nice used car than a new car that is perceived as inferior or substandard.

Unlike almost all traditional convertibles of the era that used frame-free side windows, the Rambler retained the fixed roof structure above the car’s doors and rear-side window frames. This metal structure served as the side guides or rails for the retractable waterproof canvas top. This design allowed Nash to utilize its monocoque (unibody) construction on its new compact. It made the Rambler body very rigid for an open-top car, without the additional bracing required in other convertible models. The convertible top was cable-driven and electrically operated.

In developing this new car, Nash had originally planned to call it the Diplomat. This name would have rounded out the Nash family of cars; as for 1950, the 600 line was renamed the Statesman, and the Ambassador remained the flagship line. When it was learned that Dodge had already reserved the Diplomat name for a planned two-door hardtop body style, Nash delved into its own past, and resurrected the Rambler name from an 1897 prototype and its first production model, in 1902. Rambler was also one of the popular early American automobile brands.

Additional historical context of the Nash Rambler, along with the Nash-Healey and the Metropolitan, was that U.S. citizens were exposed to and gained experience with the smaller, more efficient compact and sporty European cars during the Second World War. Along with the styling cues of European designs, the car’s input included the approach of more compact cars, which came from Nash-Kelvinator having a wide market overseas. This influence is seen directly in the Pininfarina designed models. AMC would later continue to import European design and styling flair for its products, such as the Hornet Sportabouts by Gucci, the Javelins by Pierre Cardin, and the Matador coupes by Oleg Cassini.

Model years

1950

1950–1952
1951 Nash “Country Club” 2-door hardtop
Body and chassis
Body style	2-door convertible 2-door sedan 2-door station wagon 2-door sedan delivery
Powertrain
Engine	173 cu in (2.8 L) I6
Dimensions
Wheelbase	100 in (2,540 mm)
Length	176 in (4,470 mm)

The Nash Rambler was introduced on April 13, 1950; in the middle of the model year. The new Rambler was available only as an upmarket two-door convertible — designated the “Landau“. Without the weight of a roof, and with a low wind resistance body design for the time, the inline 6-cylinder engine could deliver solid performance and deliver fuel economy up to 30 mpg_-US (7.8 L/100 km; 36 mpg_-imp).

Several factors were incorporated into the compact Nash Rambler’s marketing mix that including making the most from the limited steel supplies during the Korean War, as well as the automaker selecting a strategyfor profit maximization from the new Rambler line. The new Nash Rambler came only in a convertible body, a style that had a higher price in the marketplace and incorporating more standard features that make the open top models suitable more for leisure-type use than ordinary transportation. With a base price of $1,808 (equivalent to approximately $17,722 in today’s funds), the Nash Rambler was priced slightly lower than the base convertible models convertibles from its intended competition. To further increase the value to buyers, the Nash Rambler was well equipped compared to the competition and included numerous items as standard equipment such as whitewall tires, full wheel covers, electric clock, and even a pushbutton AM radio that were available at extra cost on all other cars at that time.

In summary, “it was a smartly styled small car. People also liked its low price and the money-saving economy of its peppy 6-cylinder engine.” The abbreviated first year of production saw sales of 9,330 Nash Rambler convertibles.

Nash Rambler Custom convertible

1951

In 1951, the Nash Rambler line was enlarged to include a two-door station wagon and a two-door pillarless hardtop — designated the Country Club. Both the hardtop and convertible models included additional safety features.

Two levels of trim were available: Custom and Super.

A car tested by the British magazine The Motor in 1951 had a top speed of 80.9 mph (130 km/h) and could accelerate from 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) in 21.0 seconds. Fuel consumption of 25.2 mpg_-imp (11.2 L/100 km; 21.0 mpg_-US) was recorded. The test car cost $1,808 in the U.S., but British sales had not at the time started.

1952 Nash Rambler “Custom Greenbrier” station wagon

1952 interior

1952

There were no major changes for the 1952 model year. Models included a new Deliveryman 2-door utility wagon for $1,892. The “Custom” models featured Nash’s Weather Eye conditioning system and an AM radio as standard equipment. The new Greenbrier station wagons received upgraded trim with two-tone painted exteriors and they were priced at $2,119, the same as the Custom Landau Convertible model.

The 1950-1952 Nash Ramblers “gained instant popularity with buyers who liked its looks, as well as loyalty among customers who appreciated its quality engineering and performance.” A total of 53,000 Nash Ramblers were made for the year.

1953

1953-1955
1955 Nash Rambler 4-door Cross Country wagon
Body and chassis
Body style	2-door convertible 2-door sedan 2-door station wagon 4-door sedan 4-door station wagon 2-door sedan delivery
Powertrain
Engine	184 cu in (3.0 L) I6 (with manual) 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 (with automatic)
Dimensions
Wheelbase	100 in (2,540 mm) all 2-door models 108 in (2,743 mm) 4-door sedan & wagon
Length	176 in (4,470 mm) all 2-door models 186.4 in (4,735 mm) 4-door sedan & wagon

The Rambler received its first restyling in 1953, and resembled the “senior” Nash models that had received all-new “Airflyte” styling the year before. The new styling was again credited to Italian automobile designer Battista “Pinin” Farina. The hood line was lowered and a new hood ornament, designed by George Petty was optional. The “racy” ornament “was a sexy woman leaning into the future, bust down and pointing the way.”

The standard engines were increased with manual transmission cars receiving a 184 cu in (3.0 L) I6 producing 85 hp (63 kW; 86 PS), while a 90 hp (67 kW; 91 PS) 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 powered cars with the optional “Hydra-Matic” automatic supplied by General Motors. The Custom models added Nash’s “Weather Eye” heating and ventilation system, as well as a radio as standard equipment, with the convertible and hardtop versions all getting a continental tire at no extra cost.

1953 Nash Rambler Deliveryman

The marketing campaign focused on the Nash Rambler as a second family car. Advertisements also featured the wife of Jimmy Stewart and her Country Club 2-door hardtop she described as “a woman’s dream-of-a-car come true!” and promoting buyers to spend “one wonderful hour” test driving to discover how “among two-car families – four out of five prefer to drive their Rambler.”

A survey of owners of 1953 Ramblers conducted by Popular Mechanics indicated the majority listed their car’s economy as the feature they like best. After they had driven a total of 1,500,000 miles (2,400,000 km), owners’ complaints included a lack of rear seat legroom, water leaks, and poor dimmer switch position, but none of the Rambler drivers rated acceleration as unsatisfactory. Fully 29 percent had no complaints and “only four percent of Rambler owners described the car as too small and 67 percent rated their Ramblers as excellent over-all.”

Production for the model year was 31,788 and included 9 Deliveryman models in the station wagon body, 15,255 Country Club hardtops, 10,598 Convertible Landaus, 10,600 Custom station wagons (of which 3,536 were in the Greenbrier trim and 7,035 with 3M‘s “Di-Noc” simulated wood-grain trim), and 1,114 standard wagons.

1954

Nash Rambler 4-door sedan Custom with continental tire

After offering only two-door-only models, Nash introduced a four-door sedan and a four-door station wagon in the Nash Rambler line starting with the 1954 model year. This was the automaker’s response to demands of larger families for more roomy Ramblers. The four-door body styles rode on a longer, 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase. Following the industry practice at the time, the heater and radio were now made optional. Added to the option list was Nash’s exclusive integrated automobile air conditioning system, a “very sophisticated setup” for the time incorporated heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in one system that was “priced lower than any other competing system; at $345, it was a remarkable advance.”

The four-door Rambler sedan was at first only available in “Custom” trim. The “Country Club” hardtop became available in the lower-priced “Super” trim and without the “Custom” model’s standard Continental tire (external spare tire carrier). The 4-door station wagons were designated Cross Country and featured an unusual roofline that followed the slope of the sedan’s roof and then dipped down before leveling and continuing rearward. The design by Bill Reddig allowed the use of the same dies to produce door framing for sedans and station wagons, while the dip in the rear portion of the roof included a roof rack as standard equipment to reduce the visual effect of the wagon’s lowered roofline.

There was turmoil in the U.S. automobile market as the Ford-Chevy sales war broke out and the two largest domestic automakers cut prices to gain sales volume.^[20] This battle decimated the remaining independent automakers in their search for customers. This marketing war put a squeeze on the much smaller independent automakers so even though the Nash Rambler economy cars proved popular, they were not particularly profitable.

On May 1, 1954, Nash and Hudson Motor Car Company announced a merger, and the successor corporation was named American Motors Corporation (AMC). Following the merger, Hudson dealers began receiving Ramblers that were badged as Hudson brand cars. The Hudson Ramblers and Nash Ramblers were identical, save for the brand name and minor badging.

1955

1955 Nash Rambler brochure describing the interiors

1955 Hudson Rambler Super 2-door

1955 Rambler Country Club

The Nash Rambler’s most significant change for the 1955 model year was opening the front wheel wells resulting in a 6-foot (2 m) decrease in the turn-circle diameter from previous year’s versions, with the two-door models having the smallest in the industry at 36 ft (11 m). The “traditional” Nash fixed fender skirts were removed and the front track (the distance between the center points of the wheels on the axle as they come in contact with the road) was increased to be even greater than was the Rambler’s rear tread. Designers Edmund Anderson, Pinin Farina, and Meade Moore did not like the design element that was insisted by George Mason, so soon as Mason died, “Anderson hastily redesigned the front fenders.” Tongue-in-cheek, Popular Science magazine described the altered design for 1955: the “little Rambler loses its pants.”

As part of the facelift for 1955, the Rambler’s grille was also redesigned with only the center emblem differentiating the cars now sold by both Nash and Hudson dealers. The Rambler was a new model for Hudson dealers and it replaced the compact Hudson Jet.

The interiors of the economical Nash Rambler were designed by Helene Rother to also appeal to the feminine eye. American Motors featured “Created to Your Discriminating Taste” in the car’s marketing knowing what women looked for in a car and Rother’s designs featured elegant, stylish, and expensive fabrics that coordinated in colors and trim.

Model and trim combinations were again reshuffled with a two-door Suburban and Club two-door sedans available in “Deluxe” or “Super” versions. Four-door sedans and wagons came as Super or Custom models, while a new Deluxe four-door sedan was introduced. The pillarless Country Club hardtop was reduced to only the “Custom” trim, while the convertible model was no longer available.

Fleet sales only versions included a Deliveryman wagon that was not shown in the regular catalog, as well as another new model, a three-passenger business coupe: a two-door sedan with no rear seat.

The automaker’s marketing efforts included sponsorship of the Disneyland television show on the ABC network. The inaugural broadcast was on 25 October 1955; just five days after the new Ramblers debuted in both Nash and Hudson dealerships, and the Disney show quickly become one of the top watched programs in the U.S., thus helping AMC sell more cars.

The focus continued on economy and a Rambler four-door set an all-time record for cars with automatic transmissions of 27.47 mpg_-US (8.56 L/100 km; 32.99 mpg_-imp) in the 1955 the Mobil Economy Run.

The U.S. domestic market was turning to bigger and bigger cars; therefore, prospects for the compact Nash Rambler line was limited and production was discontinued after the 1955 model year.

Motorsports

The smallest car in the July 13, 1951, 400-lap NASCAR sanctioned Short Track Late Model Division race in Lanham, Maryland, was a Nash Rambler Country Club (two-door hardtop). Owned by Williams Nash Motors of Bethesda, Maryland, the car was driven to victory by Tony Bonadies. He stayed in the back of the 25-car field on the quarter-mile track until making a steady move up to the lead position. The Nash Rambler was also the only car to run the entire 100-mile (161 km) race without making a pit stop.

On July 18, 1952, the NASCAR Short Track race at the Lanham Speedway, was 400 laps on 0.2-mile paved oval for a total of 80 mi (129 km) miles. Tony Bonadies finished the race in 4th place in a 1952 Nash.

Replacement

The sales war between Ford and Chevrolet that took place during 1953 and 1954 reduced the market share for the remaining automakers trying to compete against the standard-sized models offered by the domestic Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler). American Motors responded to the changing market by focusing development on the 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase four-door versions that it had introduced in 1954. Production of the original compact Nash Rambler ended in 1955 as AMC introduced an all-new Rambler for the 1956 model year. These used the 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase and became larger cars, but were “compact” compared to ones made by the Big Three. The bigger Rambler models were sold by both Nash and Hudson dealers and they carried respective Nash and Hudson brand logos.

The new for 1956 Rambler was arguably “the most important car American Motors ever built” in that it not only created and defined a new market segment, emphasized the virtues of compact design, but also enabled the automaker to prosper in the post-World War II marketplace that shifted from a seller’s to a buyer’s market. The new Ramblers came only as four-door models. Along with the usual four-door sedan and station wagon was a new four-door hardtop sedan, as well as an industry first, a four-door hardtop station wagon. An OHV version of the 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) engine was also introduced for 1956 to replace the L-head version that was used in previous models. The OHV I6 was the only engine available in the 1956 Ramblers as the new AMC V8s did not appear until the 1957 model year.

Revival

The revived Rambler American

With AMC’s focus on economical automobiles, management saw an opportunity with the economic recession of 1958 to revive the small 100 in (2,540 mm) wheelbase Nash Rambler. The automaker had retained the old tooling and the old model would fit between the bigger 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase family-sized Ramblers and the imported two-seat 85 in (2,159 mm) wheelbase Nash Metropolitan. This would be a smaller and more efficient alternative to the standard-sized cars that were marketed by the domestic Big Three at that time. The old Nash design was slightly modified and used for AMC’s “new” 1958 Rambler American.

Epilogue

The book listing the 75 noteworthy American automobiles that made news from 1895 to 1970, documents “the 1950 Nash Rambler was a historic car on two counts: its ancestry and its small size.” While other compact-sized cars were introduced by the small independent automakers, such as the Henry J, Hudson Jet, and Willys Aero, only the Rambler survived long enough to establish a real place in automotive history.

Moreover, the compact-sized Nash Rambler automobile evolved into a business strategy for American Motors as the company firmly associated itself with small cars in the U.S. marketplace. In the 1960s, the automaker “prospered on the back of the Nash Rambler, the compact that recalled the name of the vehicle Thomas B. Jeffrey built in 1902 at the Kenosha, Wisconsin factory that continued to be AMC’s main production plant.”

The Nash Rambler succeeded where others “tried to entice US consumers looking for practical, economical automobiles” during an era “when all Detroit had to offer were pricey, ostentatious behemoths.” The Big Three domestic automakers exited the entry-level car market to foreign makes starting in the early 1950s. Nash was the only American manufacturer to get the compact formula right by offering Rambler “well equipped and priced sensibly”; “styling that was fresh, distinctive, and attractive”; and for “the original Rambler’s run in 1950–55 was that there was a full line of Ramblers in many body styles, including a jaunty convertible.”

According to automotive historian Bill Vance, the Nash Ramblers “are not much remembered, but they did provide reliable, economical and sturdy service.”^[5] “Nash’s reputation for building eminently sensible vehicles means that their products are often overlooked by the modern-day enthusiast.”

• Rambler American: 1958 – 1968

Rambler American

Rambler American
Second generation – 1962 convertible
Overview
Manufacturer	American Motors (AMC)
Production	1958 – 1969
Assembly	Kenosha, Wisconsin, United States Brampton, Ontario, Canada Tehran, Iran (Pars Khodro) Mexico City, Mexico (VAM) Pretoria, South Africa Port Melbourne, Australia (AMI)
Body and chassis
Class	Compact
Layout	FR layout
Platform	AMC’s “junior cars”
Chronology
Predecessor	Nash Rambler
Successor	AMC Hornet

 First generation 1959 2-door sedan

 Third generation – 1966 4-door sedan. This example sports a 1969 grille.

 Rambler American badge

The Rambler American is an automobile manufactured by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) between 1958 and 1969. The American was the second incarnation of AMC’s forerunner Nash Motors second-generation Rambler compact that was sold under the Nash and Hudson Motors marques from 1954 and 1955.

The American can be classified in three distinct model year generations: 1958 to 1960, 1961 to 1963, and 1964 to 1969. During the entire length of its production, the car was sold under the Rambler brand name, and was the last Rambler named automobile marketed in the Canadian and United States markets.

The compact Rambler American was most often the lowest priced car built in the U.S. It was popular for its economy in ownership, as was proven by numerous Mobilgas Economy Run championships. After an optional second-generation AMC V8 engine was added in 1966, it also became known as a powerful compact performance model that also included the 390 cu in (6.4 L) version built in conjunction with Hurst, the 1969 SC/Rambler.

A special youth-oriented concept car, the 1964 Rambler Tarpon, was built on an Rambler American platform that foretold the fastback design of the 1965 Rambler Marlin, as well as future trends in sporty-type pony cars, including the 1968 AMC Javelin.

The compact Rambler Americans were exported from the U.S. and Canada, as well as produced in other markets by AMC subsidiaries or assembled under license. It was manufactured in Australia, Iran, Mexico, and in Argentina, an offspring of the third generation American restyled by Pininfarina, the IKA Torino, later Renault Torino, was developed and made between 1966 and 1982. In Iran it was assembled from completely knocked down (CKD) kits and the models were named Aria and Shahin. Rambler Americans were built in South Africa starting in 1961 by Stanley Motors (controlled by the Rootes Group) and from 1964 by American Motors South Africa (Pty) Ltd.

Development

The genesis of the Rambler American began with the Nash Rambler, introduced in 1950. AMC President George Mason believed in small cars, and had introduced the Austin built/Nash designed Metropolitan in 1954. The Rambler line grew to a larger size (108″) in 1956. The cost to produce the Metropolitan were rising, so AMC decided to reintroduce a modified version of the 1955 Nash Rambler (the last 100″ wheelbase model). The domestically produced replacement let AMC control costs more closely. New AMC president George Romney also wanted to build momentum in AMC’s challenge to the domestic Big Three automakers by adding a third car line. The introduction of the new low priced sub compact Rambler was ideal—America had just entered into a recession in 1958 as the car was introduced.

The first proposals were to modify AMC’s captive import by extending the Metropolitan with a station wagon type roof design to make room for four passengers.^[2] However the 85-inch (2,159 mm) wheelbase of the Met severely limited the necessary interior room, and costs of the overseas built model were harder to control. On the other hand, the company had retained the tooling from its 1955 model Rambler. The old model’s 100-inch (2,540 mm) wheelbase fit between its bigger family-sized 108-inch (2,743 mm) wheelbase Ramblers and the small import. The old design could be slightly modified and then used for the basis of the “new” American.

American Motors’ financial condition meant it could not afford to develop an entirely new model. The reintroduction of the old model leveraged the Rambler’s renown for fuel economy and wins in the Mobil Economy Runs, with the consumer’s need for a smaller and more efficient alternative to the standard-sized cars that were marketed by the domestic Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) at that time.

First generation

First generation
1959 Rambler American sedan
Overview
Production	1958 – 1960
Body and chassis
Body style	2-door coupe 2-door station wagon 4-door sedan
Powertrain
Engine	195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6
Dimensions
Wheelbase	100 in (2,540 mm)
Length	178.25 in (4,528 mm)
Width	73 in (1,854 mm)
Height	57.32 in (1,456 mm)

1958

American Motors’ designers gave the car a new grille and more open rear fender wells, giving the car a lighter appearance than that of the earlier car, which had hidden its rear wheels behind deeply skirted fenders. The original taillights were turned upside down, saving money on retooling. This design was originally mandated by Nash’s Airflyte styling motif, which sought to reach for the blinding optimism of post-World War II transportation. The car’s seemingly narrow 55-inch (1,397 mm) track was not much different from the industry standard, but rather an illusion fostered by the bulbous bodywork.

Romney worried about cannibalizing sales of his larger, more profitable senior Ramblers, so for 1958, the American was available only as a two-door sedan (senior Ramblers came only in a variety of 4-door body styles.) The only engine was a 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) flathead six producing 90 hp (67 kW; 91 PS). The American went on sale late January 1958, with a minimum of marketing and promotion. It was available in two trims, a base Deluxe model priced at US$ 1,789 allowing AMC to claim the lowest-priced car made in America (adjusted only for inflation, equal to US$14,624 in 2015 dollars) and as a Super trim version for $1,874 offering more “luxuries”. The car was advertised as being the only small car with an automatic transmission. All Americans were completely dipped in rust proofing.

The automotive press was positive to the reintroduced model. Tom McCahill wrote in Mechanix Illustrated, “There isn’t a better buy in the world today.” He continued, “The Rambler American … is an ideal-size small family car… It will give up to 30 miles on a gallon of gas (and more, with overdrive) and will outperform any imported sedan selling for under $2,000 except in the cornering department… It is by far the most rattle-and-squeak-free 1958 Detroit product I’ve driven-and I’ve driven them all!”

Reports by owners praised the car’s economy of operation, but ranked at the top its ease of handling. A “workhorse” priced at under $2,000 “it doesn’t look as though every penny was pinched out of it”, but retains a “chic look”. The American found 30,640 buyers during the abbreviated 1958 model year and helped Rambler become the only domestic make to post an increase in sales that year.

1959

 1959 Rambler American 2-door sedan

A two-door station wagon was added to the line in 1959. With the larger Rambler Six wagons offered only as four-door models, AMC’s management thought there would be little sales cannibalization from the American. The Deluxe wagon was priced at $2,060, while the $2,145 Super version included a standard cargo-area mat and roof rack. A Deliveryman commercial wagon, with no rear seat and an extended cargo floor, was available, but found few takers. Self-adjusting brakes were added in 1959.

Rambler sales increased in 1959, and AMC struggled to keep up with demand as production tripled to 91,491 Americans, with 32,639 (almost 36 percent) made up by the new wagon. The two-door sedans each sold nearly as well, also, at 29,954 for the lower-priced Deluxe and 28,449 for the top-line Super.

1960

 1960 Rambler American Custom wagon

For the 1960 model year, the Rambler American line added a four-door sedan body style and a third trim level, a top-of-the line Custom. The new four-door rode on the same 100 in (2,540 mm) wheelbase as the other models and was meant to battle the newly introduced compacts from the Big Three, the Ford Falcon, Chevrolet Corvair, and Plymouth Valiant.

The new Custom model came standard with a new 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) overhead valve engine with a slightly higher compression ratio of 8.7:1 producing an additional 37 hp (28 kW; 38 PS), for a total output of 125 hp (93 kW; 127 PS), while the base models retained the flathead as the standard engine. The flathead six had no visible intake manifold since it was integrated within the cylinder head, while the exhaust manifold is a “log-type” that looks like a long tube. All models received an enlarged gas tank, now 22 US gal (83 L; 18 imp gal) capacity, while power steering was a new option.

Even in the face of the new competition from much larger automakers, the compact Rambler American enjoyed appeal not only because of its low initial price, economy and high gas mileage, but also because its resale values ranked among the highest. The suggested delivered price for the Deluxe 2-door sedan was $1,795, and it was advertised as the lowest priced car in America. Demand for the traditional American continued to grow as sales increased to 120,603 units (of which 44,817 were two-door sedans, 46,973 four-door sedans, and 28,813 station wagons), thus helping AMC reach 7.5 percent of the U.S. market with a total Rambler sales of 485,745 automobiles and third place among domestic brands.

Second generation

Second generation
1963 American 440-H hardtop
Overview
Production	1961 – 1963
Designer	Edmund E. Anderson
Body and chassis
Body style	2-door coupe 2-door convertible 2-door hardtop (1963) 4-door sedan 2-door station wagon 4-door station wagon
Powertrain
Engine	195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6
Dimensions
Wheelbase	100 in (2,540 mm)
Length	173.1 in (4,397 mm)
Width	70 in (1,778 mm)
Height	56.2 in (1,427 mm)

The second generation Rambler American was achieved through a heavy restyling of the previous year’s model under AMC’s styling Vice President Edmund E. Anderson. While mechanically identical to the 1960 model, Anderson’s restyle resulted in a car that was three inches (76 mm) narrower and shorter in its exterior dimensions with an overall length of 173.1 inches (4,397 mm), but increased in its cargo capacity. Continuing to ride on the 100-inch (2,540 mm) wheelbase, the American’s new styling was more square (sometimes described as “breadbox”) instead of the round “rolly-polly” shape (or “bathtub”), and the visual connection with the original 1950 Nash model had finally disappeared. Popular Mechanics wrote “seldom has a car been completely restyled as the 1961 Rambler American and yet retain the same engine, driveline, suspension on the same unit body”. All outside sheetmetal was changed, but the side window frames remained the same as previous models. Only the back glass changed to conform to the new roof line. The firewall and dash board were new stampings, with the brakes moved from under the floor to the firewall.

1961

 Rambler American 400

For 1961 the American line added a four-door station wagon, as well as a two-door convertible for the first time since 1954. It featured a power-operated folding top with roll-down door glass, rather than the fixed side-window frames of the original design. Passenger room increased from five to six.

The straight six was modernized with an overhead-valve cylinder head for higher-grade models, but the base cars continued with the flathead engine.

American Motors built a new assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, for the production of Rambler Americans as well as the larger Rambler Classics.

1962

 The 1962 Rambler American used in the 3rd Rock from the Sun TV show

Setting new sales records, American Motors continued its “policy of making changes only when they truly benefit the customer.” The 1962 model year Rambler American lineup was essentially the same as in 1961. Model designations were changed with the Custom trim becoming a 400.

A new “E-stick” option combined a manual 3-speed transmission with an automatic clutch as a low-cost alternative to the fully automatic transmission. The E-stick was also available in conjunction with an overdrive unit. The system cost $59.50, but offered stick-shift economy, performance, and driver control without a clutch pedal by using engine oil pressure and intake manifold vacuum to engage and disengage the clutch when shifting gears.

Although the “Big Three” domestic automakers had introduced competitive compact models by 1962, the Rambler American remained the oldest, smallest, “stubbornly unique” refusing “to conform to Detroit’s standard pattern for scaled-down automobiles” and “free of gimmicky come-ons.” A 10,000-mile (16,093 km) road test by Popular Science described the 1962 Rambler American as “sturdy, solid, dependable little automobile, comfortable to drive … a good buy for what it’s built for – transportation, not a status symbol.”

The automaker’s president, George W. Romney, appeared prominently in advertisements asking potential customers to “think hard” about new cars and describing “more than 100 improvements in the 1962 Ramblers” and why they are not available in competitive cars, as well as AMC “workers as progress-sharing partners” so that buyers can “expect superior craftsmanship.”

1963

For 1963, model designations were changed once again with the 400 now called 440. A new hardtop (no B-pillar) coupe body design debuted, whose steel roof was designed to mimic the appearance of a closed convertible top. This was a one-model-year-only design with a thin profile, clean lines, stamped faux-convertible ribs, and a textured finish. A special top-of-the-line model called the 440-H was equipped with sports-type features including individually adjustable reclining front bucket seats and a center console, as well as a more powerful 138 hp (103 kW; 140 PS) version of Rambler’s stalwart 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) inline-6 engine. An optional console shifted “Twin-Stick” manual overdrive transmission was introduced. This transmission has a bigger gap between 2nd and 3rd gears compared to the regular three-speed transmissions with overdrive (that operated like a four-speed although the driver needed to know the governor cut-in speed, free-wheeling, as well as when to lock the overdrive in or out). This allowed the transmission to be shifted as a five-speed (1, 2, 2+OD, 3, and 3+OD). The Twin-Stick shifter had the kick-down button on top of the shift lever knob to facilitate five-speed shifting.

The entire product line from AMC earned the Motor Trend Car of the Year award for 1963. The recognition was used by AMC to promote the carryover Rambler American models.

First as the Nash Rambler and then as two generations of the Rambler American, this automobile platform performed the rare feat of having two distinct and successful model runs, an almost unheard of phenomenon in automobile history. The convertible and hardtop were the sportiest of the final 100-inch (2,540 mm) wheelbase Rambler Americans, and arguably the most desirable now.

Third generation

Third generation
1964 Rambler American 440-H hardtop
Overview
Also called	Pars Khodro Aria and Shahin Iran
Production	1964 – 1969
Designer	Richard A. Teague
Body and chassis
Body style	2-door convertible 2-door hardtop 2-door coupe 4-door sedan 4-door station wagon
Related	IKA Torino, (Argentina)
Powertrain
Engine	195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 199 cu in (3.3 L) I6 232 cu in (3.8 L) I6 290 cu in (4.8 L) V8 2-bbl 290 cu in (4.8 L) V8 4-bbl 343 cu in (5.6 L) V8 4-bbl 390 cu in (6.4 L) V8 4-bbl
Transmission	3-speed manual 3-speed with overdrive 4-speed manual 3-speed automatic
Dimensions
Wheelbase	106 in (2,692 mm)
Length	177.25 in (4,502 mm) (1964-65) 181 in (4,597 mm) (1966-69)
Width	70.8 in (1,798 mm)
Height	54.5 in (1,384 mm) (approx)
Curb weight	2,504 lbs (1135.8 kg)

For its third generation, the American emerged with what would be its only completely new design. The entire line was treated to neat and trim lines with pleasing simplicity (compared to the more boxy predecessors) with characteristic tunneled headlights with a simple horizontal grille between them. The Rambler American’s wheelbase grew by six-inches or 152 mm (to 106 in or 2692 mm) and the interiors were made more spacious.The station wagons in the restyled 1964 series came with four doors and gained 17% more cargo space compared to the previous design. They all featured a new roll-down disappearing rear window for the bottom-hinged tailgate. Full coil front springs along with soft rear leaf units, gave the new American an unusually smooth ride, better than many larger domestic cars. The new models also incorporated various parts and components (such as doors) that were interchangeable with AMC’s larger cars. In essence, the new body was a shorter, narrower version of the previous years new Rambler Classic.

The new styling was the work of designer Richard A. Teague, who would go on to design the 1968 Javelin and AMX. Many viewed the newly designed station wagon as the best looking of any American wagon, with its new, trim lines and ample passenger and cargo room. Led by the top-line 440-series convertible, they were arguably the 1964’s most attractive Detroit compacts. Car Life magazine titled its road test of the 1964 Rambler American: “The Original Plain Jane Compact Car Just Got Back From the Beauty Parlor”.

1964

 1964 American 440 convertible

In addition to the top-of-the-line 440 models, the cheaper 330 and 220 models were also available, and Rambler American sales soared to a record 160,000-plus. The old 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 was a gas stingy champ in the Mobil Economy Runs and available in 90 hp (67 kW; 91 PS), 125 hp (93 kW; 127 PS), and 138 hp (103 kW; 140 PS) versions.

However, American Motors focused its marketing on the economy of the new models, an advertising of a kind that was previously only popular during the Great Depression. The company’s series of “Love Letters to Rambler” advertisements included “ordinary user testimonial” about the economy and reliability of their Ramblers, rather than in pursuit of buyers in the whole compact car market segment, a strategy that was copied ten years later by Datsun.

1965

 1965 American 440 convertible

The 1965 Americans were little changed, but were advertised as “The Sensible Spectaculars”. This was part of Roy Abernethy‘s strategy for AMC to shed its “economy car” reputation and take on the domestic Big Three automakers in new market segments. There were few changes to AMC’s smallest models, as Abernethy pinned his hopes for recovery not so much on the low-priced Rambler American as on the medium and higher-priced Classic and Ambassador lines.

The year also saw the introduction of an entirely new 232 cu in (3.8 L) overhead valve straight-6 engine that AMC would use through 1979, with a smaller 199 cu in (3.3 L) version being used only during 1966-1970. The same engine was later available in a larger 258 cu in (4.2 L) version (used from 1971–89) and the fuel injected 242 cu in (4.0 L) versions that debuted in 1987, known as the Jeep 4.0, which Chrysler would continue their production after its purchase of AMC in 1987, all the way through 2006.

The 1965 models was the last year for the venerable flathead six. It was the last flathead engine to be used in a domestic U.S. car.

1966

 1966 American 440 convertible

As the automobile marketplace in the U.S. was moving away from economy and toward performance and upmarket vehicles, American Motors began removing the historic Rambler name from its larger models. However, the American and Classic models retained their economy car marketing image and their traditional nameplate. To cement this image, a Rambler American was again the overall winner in the Mobil Economy Run. The mid-trim level 330 model was dropped, leaving the top 440 and base 220 models in the lineup for 1966. The top of the line model, available only as a two-door hardtop, saw its name changed from 440-H toRogue.

The American models were facelifted for the 1966 model year with more squared-off front and rear styling. The front of the car was extended to add three inches (76 mm) to the inside of the engine compartment. This allowed air conditioning to be used with the new 199 and 232 in-line six-cylinder engines., which were longer than the old 195.6 models.

A completely new 290 cu in (4.8 L) “Typhoon” V8 engine was developed by AMC and it saw its introduction in a special mid-1966 Rogue model. Available in 200 hp (149 kW; 203 PS) two-barrel carburetor version or producing 225 hp (168 kW; 228 PS) with a 4-barrel carburetor and high compression, the new engines utilized “thin-wall” casting technology and weighed only 540 pounds (245 kg). The newly powered Rogue came with a 3-speed automatic transmission or a floor mounted 4-speed manual, and made the car “suitable for the Stoplight Grand Prix.” American Motors’ new engine design would expand in power and in applications across the company’s passenger cars, as well as eventually in Jeeps, and then continue to be assembled through 1991 for the Jeep Grand Wagoneer; long after AMC was sold to Chrysler.

1967

 1967 Rambler Rogue 2-door hardtop

 1967 Rambler Rogue convertible

 1967 Rambler 220 2-door sedan

The 1967 model year Rambler American used the same body styling as the previous year’s models, with only minor changes that included new taillamps and full-length body moldings on 440 and Rogue models that was now positioned lower on the sides. The last convertible available in the American series was in 1967, and it was moved up from 440 models to join the hardtop in the Rogue trim version. The American was available in nine models, and was the only U.S. compact to be available in “all” body styles (2-door, 4-door, sedan, wagon, pillar-less hardtop, and convertible).

For 1967 only, AMC’s new high-compression (10.2:1), high (octane rating) 343 cu in (5.6 L) V8 engine with a 4-barrel carburetor that produced 280 hp (209 kW; 284 PS) and 365 pound force-feet (495 N·m) of torque @ 3000rpm, was optional in Rogue and 440 models. Factory installations of this engine were in 58 Rogues and just 55 in the 440 models, with seven of them being in the convertible version. Out of the total production of 69,912 Rambler Americans for the 1967 model year, 921 were Rogue convertibles.

Rogues also received grille trim that wrapped around the fender sides. All Rambler Americans received a new grille insert with prominent chromed horizontal bars. The 1967 Rogue models were available in new two-tone paint schemes for the roof, trunk lid and hood that included border trim along the upper body line. The two-door hardtops were also available with a black or white vinyl roof cover. Taillight lenses were more sculptured into the rear panel.

The 1967 model year also saw the addition of the new safety standards for passenger cars mandated by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The regulations began with seat belts on automobiles produced after March 1, 1967. The 1967 Rambler Americans also included a collapsible, energy-absorbing steering column and steering wheel, more padding on interior surfaces, 4-way hazard flashers, and locking seat back latches for 2-door models. The instrument cluster was changed from the previous rectangular design, to round gauges: the center dial housing the speedometer and odometer, the with twin smaller fuel and engine temperature gauges and matching warning light pods flanking each side of the speedometer.

All 1967 Americans were covered by AMC’s comprehensive warranty designed to increase customer confidence in their vehicles with the tagline: quality built in, so the value stays in. It was the strongest backing among all the automakers up to that time: 2-years or 25,000 miles (40,000 km) on the entire automobile, as well as 5-years or 50,000 miles (80,000 km) on the engine and power train. American Motors continued its industry exclusive ceramic-coated exhaust system as standard on Rambler Americans.

Newly appointed as AMC’s new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Roy D. Chapin, Jr. began to promote and reposition the Rambler American, the automaker’s least popular line. He bet on the Rambler American to improve the automaker’s financial performance after George W. Romney. Chapin also saw a price gap between U.S. cars and inexpensive imports (primarily the Volkswagen) and lowered the price to make the Rambler American’s “total value superior to the imports, as well as superior in both price and range of choice to U.S. compacts”. The suggested retail price of the base two-door Rambler American sedan dropped to $1,839 (US$ 13,007 in 2015 dollars) (its closest U.S. competitor was the $2,117 Plymouth Valiant), making the larger and more powerful American only $200 more than the Volkswagen Beetle.

American Motors announced that it was forgoing the annual styling changeovers that were expected among the domestic firms, thus saving retooling costs and passing on the savings to consumers by keeping the car’s price low. The automaker promised in a special $300,000 ($2,121,856 in 2015 dollars) advertising campaign that future changes to the car will be to enhance the safety and reliability of these cars. The Rambler American’s recent (1966) redesign was then continued mostly unchanged through the 1969 model year.

1968

 1968 Rambler American station wagon

For 1968, the line was further simplified from nine to five models, with the 2-door coupe and 4-door sedan comprising the base line (with the 220 designation no longer used), 4-door sedan and station wagon being offered in uplevel 440 guise, and a lone hardtop coupe making up the top-line Rogue trim line. The American, along with “A-body” Chryslers, were the only domestics that came as a hardtop coupe model, the Ford Falcon and Chevy Nova being only available as pillared sedans (and a wagon in the Ford Falcon line).

All Americans received a new chrome horizontal grille bar that extended outboard to the headlights, while the grille sections got an attractive “blackout” treatment. The wraparound rear window on the sedans was modified to a flat unit, with a more squared-off “C” pillar, which changed the appearance from the earlier sedans with their overhanging rooflines. The overall affect was a more formal-looking car. The 440 and Rogue versions picked up a stainless steel trim piece running stem to stern on either body side, straight back between the wheel wells and the belt line. At each end of the strip were the newly safety-mandated body side reflectors, amber for the front fenders, red for the rear. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) standards for all passenger cars sold in America for 1968 also called for shoulder harness for the front seats and elimination of reflective interior trim. Other requirements for all cars manufactured after 1 January 1968, included exhaust control systems to help reduce unburned hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions.

However, the biggest change was the decision to keep the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) of the base two-door model to within US$200 of the Volkswagen Beetle. The domestic Big Three automakers did not respond to this strategy, thus giving AMC a big price differential over the competing domestic models. Sales of the Rambler American increased and the showroom traffic boosted morale among AMC’s independent dealerships. This was backed up by a marketing campaign stating, “Either we’re charging too little for our cars or everyone else is charging too much.” The promotion and lower prices were designed to rekindle the Rambler American as a practical and economical car in customers’ minds. Advertisements by AMC’s new agency, Wells, Rich, and Greene, headed by Mary Wells Lawrence violated the accepted rule of not attacking the competition.

1969

 1969 Rambler sedan

Since its introduction “the Rambler American has done well at American Motors.” For its final model year, 1969, the “American” name was dropped as the car was now referred to as the “American Motors Rambler”. Continuing the tradition of minimal changes, the models received a new “suspended” accelerator pedal and cable throttle linkage. Additional safety equipment for the 1969 models included front shoulder belts and headrests for both front outboard seating positions and the front parking lights stayed on with the headlights. On the exterior, the center horizontal chrome grille bar was deleted.

As a true compact-sized car on a 106 in (2,692 mm) wheelbase, the Rambler station wagon had no domestic competitors, and it offered interior space advantage compared to imported models with its 66 cubic feet (1,869 L) of cargo space. Available only in 440 trim, the wagons came with a roll down rear window with drop-down tailgate, as well as a roof rack.

In part to commemorate the impending passing of the Rambler name, American Motors added the Rogue-based SC/Rambler to the line (detailed separately).

A total production for the 1969 model year was 96,029. The last U.S.-made Rambler was assembled in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on 30 June, making the production total of 4,204,925 units.

After the 1969 model year, a completely redesigned model, the AMC Hornet, replaced the American.

SC/Rambler

 The SC/Rambler was purposefully promoted by AMC as a potent drag strip challenger

 SC/Rambler in “A” trim

 SC/Rambler in “B” trim

One of the muscle car era “most visually arresting examples” was a special model was produced during 1969 in collaboration with Hurst Performance, the Hurst SC/Rambler. “Likely the most outrageous musclecar from AMC” with 1,512 built, it was probably the only production model made and promoted for a specific drag racing class, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) F/Stock class.

The SC/Rambler “became one of the most potent cars of its time, throwing down quarter-mile times that only Hemis and Cobra Jets had previously touched.” A true muscle car with zero options and a suggested retail price(MSRP) of less than US$3,000, it would take down some much more vaunted cars.

Equipment

Each Hurst SC/Rambler came equipped with the 315 hp (235 kW; 319 PS) 390 cu in (6.4 L) AMC V8 engine from the AMX. There were no factory options to this package. Standard clutch was a 10.5-inch (267 mm) with a three finger long-style Borg and Beck pressure plate. The 390 engine was mated to a manual transmission four-speed T-10 with close gear ratios. A Hurst shifter came with a large metal “T” handle. The rear end was an AMC 3.54:1 “Twin-Grip” limited slip differential using Dana internals, with outer wheel hubs attached through a spline and keyway system. The hub attachment method was the only weak point in the rear end assembly.

Factory cast iron manifolds exited to a true dual exhaust with Thrush (a Tenneco brand) two-chamber oval mufflers with Woodpecker logos. These were standard baffled mufflers, not glass packs. Minimal baffeling gave a deep throaty sound, similar to modern Flowmasters. The exhaust exited through chrome tips attached with hose clamps.

While similar Rogue and American models had drum brakes, the SC package came with front discs, a heavier sway bar, as well as strengthened drive train and body components. These included connectors between the front and rear subframes. The rear end used staggered (fore and aft) rear shock absorbers to eliminate wheel hop (axle wrap) under extreme acceleration conditions with leaf spring suspensions. The staggered shocks required a special plate riveted in the trunk pan, as well as brackets for the subframe end of upper torque links. Other body modifications differentiating all Hurst SC Ramblers from regular hardtop Ramblers included rolling back front and rear wheel openings to allow for larger tires. American Motors called on Hurst to help develop a vehicle for the racing market. Because of stock class rules, a minimum of 500 identical vehicles had to be produced and sold. This led to the SC Hurst Rambler, (SC) meaning “Super Car”. This vehicle is commonly referred to as a “Scrambler”, although Jeeps later used the SCRAMBLER name.

Available only as a two-door hardtop, the interior came in standard gray charcoal vinyl upholstered reclining seats with a headliner embossed with small squares. The front seats reclined, and the newly safety mandated head restraints were upholstered in red, white, and blue stripes. The SC/Rambler included a standard 90-degree wide arc scale Sun tachometer. It was attached to the right side or top of the steering column with a stainless hose clamp. The only factory option was an AM radio.

The SC/Ramblers came with the wildest factory paint jobs ever put on a muscle car. All featured a forward-facing functioning box-type hood scoop with “390 CU. IN.” and “AIR” in large letters on both sides of it. The hood scoop air flapper was vacuum operated, allowing higher pressure cool air to pressurize a Carter AFB carburetor. A blue arrow on the hood pointed towards the air intake. The Scrambler came only in two types of red, white, and blue color schemes (“A” or “B” trims) with no other options available, with the exception of an AM radio. These schemes appeared randomly through early production.

Some AMC historians incorrectly claim that American Motors built a lot of 500 “A” scheme SC/Ramblers before switching to the “B” scheme, with 500 “B” models were built before AMC switched the final lot of 512 SC/Ramblers back to the “A” pattern. However, there are “B” scheme cars in the Hurst SC/Rambler registry with very early build dates putting their manufacture among the “A” scheme versions. AMC used the same paint code for all special paint schemes, so there is no way to determine exactly how the cars rolled out of the factory.

Some of the other unique standard items on this model included racing mirrors, anti-hop rear axle links, and blue Magnum 500 steel wheels (common to Fords) with chrome beauty rings and AMC hub centers. Tires were E-70-14 fiberglass belted 4-ply tires with red stripe Goodyear Polyglas tires. American Motors priced the SC/Rambler at $2,998 (after adjusting for only inflation, equivalent to US$19,280 in 2015dollars) a serious dragstrip contender because in its as-sold condition it could do the quarter mile in the low 14 seconds at about 100 miles per hour (161 km/h). For example, Road Test magazine reported 14.4 at 100.44 mph and reached 109 miles per hour (175 km/h) without topping out. With a few simple bolt on modifications they would run low 12’s. Modified SC/Ramblers have run the quarter-mile in the 9-second bracket.

The automaker provided AMC dealers with numerous “Group 19” parts and upgrades to make customer’s SC/Ramblers even quicker. Well-tuned legal stock S/C’s with allowable changes have run in the 12-second range. Charles Rauch set a D/S quarter mile record of 12.54 seconds at Detroit Dragway. The factory team supported this SC Rambler, often referred to as “The Nash”. Modifications included a special cast iron manifold, advanced camshaft timing, heavier valve springs, factory supplied carburetor, six cylinder front springs with factory supplied bottom shims to restore stock height, 90/10 front shocks, lightened chassis components, exhaust system modifications, Chevrolet 10.5-inch diaphragm pressure plate, wide ratio transmission gear set, 4.44 rear axle ratio, as well as larger, softer, G70-15 rear tires on identical design Magnum 500 15″ Ford wheels painted AMC blue. The manifold and some other parts were specially selected factory components for the stock 340 hp (254 kW; 345 PS) 1970 Rebel Machine engine, but legal for use in the big bore, short stroke 1969 AMC 390 engine.

IKA Torino

Main article: IKA-Renault Torino

 IKA Torino TS sedan

From 1966 to 1982, Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA) produced in Argentina a hybrid of the second-generation Rambler American and Classic platforms. The car was called IKA Torino, later Renault Torino, and featured AMC’s Automobile platform with a facelifted front and rear design and instrument panel by Pininfarina to create a new car. The Torino was received by journalists and the public as The Argentinean car.^[70] It was available in two-door hardtop and four-door sedan body styles and all came with luxurious interior appointments.

The Torino’s engine, transmission, and upgraded interior fittings were unique to Argentina, and were not used on any of the U.S. market Ramblers. The engine was the Kaiser 230 cu in (3.8 L) overhead cam (OHC) six originally developed for the new 1963 Jeeps. The car was actually a 1963-1964 Rambler Classic passenger compartment with 1964-1965 Rambler American front and rear sections. The front suspension sills extended all the way under the floor to meet the rear suspension sills, a feature that made the Torino much stiffer than its U.S. produced cousins (The Rambler Marlin also used these long sills, but other models did not). The Torino handled the roads of the interior of the country very well while its engine acquired fame for being robust and reliable. The car was successful in Argentina. It was also entered in races against famous sport cars, including the “84 hours of Nürburgring” endurance race in 1969, where a Torino finished with the most laps, but was classified in fourth place due to penalties.

Aria and Shahin

 Sherkate Sahami Jeep company built Ramblers in Iran

From 1967 to 1974, the 1966 version of the AMC Rambler American was assembled by the Sherkate Sahami Jeep company in Iran. The American was offered in two trim levels as Aria (sometimes spelled “Arya”) and Shahin. The Aria was a more luxurious version that came with a 3-speed automatic transmission, while the Shahin was the base model with a manual transmission. The engine used was AMC’s 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) inline-six producing 128 hp (95 kW; 130 PS). The cars were available with factory air conditioning, a unique feature for the Iranian market during that time.

The Aria and Shahin were assembled under the license of AMC by Pars Khodro starting in 1967. The factory in Tehran was dedicated by the last Shah of Iran. Five-year projections called for the Pars Khodro plant to build 75,000 Rambler Americans. The target was the upper and middle classes that had grown prosperous under the Shah. The Arya and Shahin versions of the Rambler American, as well as the Jeep Aho (Grand Wagoneer), “were among the best domestically produced vehicles.”

Production was continued by the Iran Jeep Company plant in Tehran. The Iran Jeep Company (Sherkate Sahami) formed a new company called General Motors Iran Ltd. in June 1972, and after production of Rambler Americans ended in early 1974, they continued to produce selected Opel Rekord, Chevrolet Nova and Pickup, Buick Skylark, and Cadillac Seville models from 1974 until 1987.

Australian production

The Rambler American was introduced to the Australian market in 1964. It was built by Australian Motor Industries in Port Melbourne from complete knock down (CKD) kits shipped from the U.S. The driver’s position was moved from left to right hand to comply with Australian law. There were also differences and overlaps in the Australian production and equipment compared to U.S. model years. The 1965 model Ramblers were produced trough 1966, mostly in 440 trim and with the smaller 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) engine. Because AMI assembled other automobile brands at its facility (including Toyotas and Triumphs), there were some sharing of colors, options, and interior trims. By 1967, the local content of the Rambler Americans had been progressively raised to 53%. Important for the Australian market, the Rambler was considered reliable, with the mechanicals being generally solid and trouble free.

Mexican production

The Rambler American was introduced to the Mexican market in 1958 through direct importation from the US. Early in the year, American Motors signed an agreement with an assembly plant based in Monterrey, Nuevo León, that produced a number of vehicles for different makes and had its own dealership network. Virtually, the whole Rambler line was available. However, the production and sales volumes were fairly low and the agreement was terminated in late 1959. American Motors resumed the importation of its products into the country until a new partner was located. Early in 1960, the company signed a new agreement with Willys Mexicana S.A. de C.V. and the first model produced was none other than the Rambler American, becoming the first American Motors product made and sold by what would become Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos S.A.

The 1960 Rambler American produced under Willys Mexicana was available in two-door sedan, four-door sedan and two-door station wagon body styles. They were powered by a 90 hp L-head 195.6 cubic inches six cylinder engine with 8.0:1 compression ratio and single-barrel carburetor coupled to a three speed manual transmission with column shift. Among its characteristics it featured a built-in flow through ventilation, four-wheel drum brakes, standard suspension, pull-handle parking brake, front parking lights, marker lights, bench seats, four side armrests, vacuum wipers, cigarette lighter, front ashtray, hood ornament, glove box, driver’s side remote mirror and hubcaps over standard wheels.

For 1961 the Rambler American for Mexico was available as the new second generation of the line, growing from three to four body styles with the introduction of the four-door station wagon. Wipers and washers changed to electric units, an Motorola AM radio with antenna and twin-circuit brakes became standard. The line continued with minor changes in 1962 and 1963. The most important aspect came in 1963 with the introduction of a fifth body style (two-door hardtop) that would become VAM’s first limited edition; the Rambler American Hardtop, Mexican equivalent to the Rambler American 440H model in the US. The car became the company’s first sporty compact as well as its first luxury one.

For 1964, the third generation Rambler American debuted in Mexico. The year’s line can be described as consolidated since it was available only as a two-door sedan, four-door sedan and four-door station wagon. The only engine available was still the L-head 90 hp 195.6 cubic inches inline six cylinder, but not much later it was replaced by the one-barrel 127 hp OHV version. The Rambler American line for 1965 switched to the new one-barrel 145 hp 232 cubic inches inline six cylinder engine, an aspect that was hidden from the public. The cars were advertised as being equipped with the also new 199 cubic inches six cylinder series, which wouldn’t be available until the midyear. The 232 engine series was already being produced in Mexico while the 195.6 engine series was imported from the US. In terms of product line volumes, warrantly claims among others, having those two engines available was not a cost-effective procedure. The company intended to consolidate and standardize production as much as possible, which was achieved by terminating the 195.6 engines and offer both the Rambler Classic and Rambler American lines with the 232 engines until the 199 was available for the latter. Had VAM announced the 232 six cylinder engine from the beginning in the Rambler American line and subsequently announcing the change to smaller less powerful engine would have taken its toll on the company’s image among the public. Also, announcing the 232 in the Rambler American from the beginning would most probably reduce any reasons to buy a Rambler Classic instead; a problem American Motors had to bear with under Roy Abernethy when the 287 cubic inch V8 was offered in the 1963 Rambler Classic, drawing several customers away from the more profitable Rambler Ambassador models that shared the same styling.

The two new engines were not the only outstanding novelties of the year, the Rambler American Hardtop was resurrected. The model kept the same luxury and sporty touches of the 1963 model and was once again a low volume limited edition. The cars came standard with the two-barrel 155 hp version of the 232 engine coupled to a Borg-Warner “Flash-o-Matic” three speed automatic transmission with floor shift. This was followed by individual reclining seats, high-trim upholstery, center console with locking compartment, two-point front seatbelts, custom wheel covers and bright molding package.

The Mexican Rambler American for 1966 and 1967 saw mostly the same cosmetic changes as its US counterparts. The hardtop model departed once more and the line was restricted to the 199 six cylinder with three speed manual transmission on the column. The 1968 models saw stronger changes in the form of the 232 engine as included standard equipment in the station wagon while becoming optional equipment in both sedan models. The 1969 models were almost the same with only minor changes. The most important aspect of the year for the line was the creation of VAM’s own original performance model in the form of an optional package for the two-door sedan. The model in question being the Rambler American Rally. This model was inspired by VAM’s successful 1965 racing season using Rambler American sedans and hardtop as well as the still building enthusiasm for the new muscle cars. The Rambler American Rally coincided in several aspects with the 1965 Rambler American Hardtop model. The package consisted of a two-barrel 155 hp 232 six cylinder, power drum brakes, fender-mounted “232 SIX” rectangular emblems and individual reclining front seats with center folding armrest. The only transmission available was still the three-speed manual with column-mounted shifter, even though a floor-mounted gearshift was available as an option. Other optional items applicable to performance included an over-dash 8,000 RPM tachometer and the sport steering wheel used in the Javelin models. The closest probable equivalent to this model in the US is the Rambler American Rogue, despite being a hardtop instead of a sedan and the lack of a V8 engine.

Like in the US, the Rambler American line was discontinued in 1969 in Mexico to make way for the all-new Hornet models. While the line was changed, the “Rambler American” name lived on the new Mexican-made compact. The Rambler American in Mexico always kept a high popularity and positive image among the Mexican public. For these reasons, the relatively similar styling and overall appearance between the old and the new model, and because VAM felt that the name “Hornet” would have no connotation whatsoever in the local market it was decided keep the predecessor’s name for the new line. The Rambler American model lived on as a “fourth generation” until its discontinuation in 1974; replaced with the updated and expanded new VAM American line for 1975.

The last hurrah for the true original Rambler American models in Mexico came in 1970 in the form of the four-door station wagon. While American Motors had two station wagons models to offer in 1970, the Rebel and Ambassador units, VAM had no station wagon other than the Rambler American-based unit. With the introduction of the new Hornet-based Rambler American that did not have a station wagon body style available, VAM could not afford the luxury of not offering one. The company decided to carry over the third generation station wagon for one more full year. The 1970 Camioneta Rambler American became the first VAM regular production compact model to offer a three speed automatic transmission as an option. Among other unique options was a bright molding package that included “440” emblems, even though there really were no different trim levels or versions that existed. The model was replaced in 1971 with the equivalent Hornet Sportabout version.

Rambler Tarpon

Main article: Rambler Tarpon

The Rambler American also served as the basis for the Rambler Tarpon, a sporty 2 plus 2 “youth-oriented” concept car. The semi-boat tail roofed fastback hardtop coupe was developed in 1963 from the tooling that was already set for the 1964 model year Rambler Americans. Shown before the introduction of Ford’s compact Falcon-based Mustang, AMC’s show car was “an instant success” with 60 percent of surveyed potential buyers stating they would buy one. The Tarpon was aimed at the Plymouth Valiant and anticipated a new market segment that later became known as the pony cars; however, AMC executives introduced the Rambler Marlin, a larger personal luxury car. The automaker waited until the 1968 model year to introduce the Javelin, a small fastback aimed directly at the market segment that was created by the Ford Mustang.

Records

Economy

 1962 American winning the Mobil Economy Run in an advertisement for Champion spark plugs

The American was introduced as the North American economy was in a recession and buyers were looking for smaller and more economical cars and the Rambler brand was known as a fuel miser. The Rambler American was a yearly winner of the best fuel economy in the Mobil Economy Run and the Pure Oil Company Economy Trials, even during later years when fuel efficiency was not a major factor in the purchase of automobiles.

For example, at the conclusion of the five-day event in 1959, that covered 1,898 miles (3,055 km), a Rambler American Deluxe topped the 47-car Mobilgas Economy Run field with an average 25.2878 miles per US gallon (9.3015 L/100 km; 30.3694 mpg_-imp). The 1959 Pure Oil Trials were conducted from Los Angeles to Miami, featuring 2,837 miles (4,566 km) covering over all types of terrain and driving types, where a Rambler American with overdrive set the all time NASCAR-supervised coast-to-coast average economy record of 35.4 miles per US gallon (6.64 L/100 km; 42.5 mpg_-imp).

In the 1960 Mobilgas Economy Run, a Custom two-door sedan returned 28.35 miles per US gallon (8.30 L/100 km; 34.05 mpg_-imp) over a route of more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km), finishing first in the compact class. Further proof of the American’s exceptional fuel economy came when an overdrive-equipped car driven coast to coast under NASCAR’s watchful eyes averaged 38.9 miles per US gallon (6.05 L/100 km; 46.7 mpg_-imp). However, the most astounding demonstration was the record set in the Pure Oil Economy Trials, another NASCAR-supervised event: 51.281 miles per US gallon (4.5868 L/100 km; 61.586 mpg_-imp), which AMC sagely noted, “No car owner should expect to approach in everyday driving.”

In the 1964 run, a 6-cylinder Rambler American 440 sedan averaged 27.8336 miles per US gallon (8.4507 L/100 km; 33.4268 mpg_-imp); once again, the best of all the cars that year.

Economy claims for stock cars could be confirmed by these open and sanctioned trials. American Motors (as well as its OEM suppliers, such as the print advertisement for Champion spark plugs) promoted the results of this popular event in its advertising as a marketing technique that further emphasized the thriftiness of the Rambler Americans.

Rambler’s emphasis on economy over performance can be observed through the example of automatic transmission use in a Rambler American where the 1959 owner’s handbook describes leaving the gear selector in the D-2 position (1.47:1 gear ratio) blocks access to low gear (2.40 ratio) when starting out from a stop; therefore, given the car’s 3.31 axle, this yields an initial 4.86:1 final drive ratio reducing crankshaft revolutions for maximum fuel economy.

Music

In 1958, the Playmates recorded a novelty song called “Beep Beep” about a duel between a Cadillac driver who just cannot shake a “little Nash Rambler” following him. The song uses an accelerating (accelerando) tempo and ends with the Rambler passing the Cadillac “…in second gear!” The song was on Billboard Top 40 charts for twelve weeks while also selling over one million copies, and it was awarded a gold disc. Concurrently with the popularity of this song, AMC was setting production and sales records for the Rambler models. This was also the same year the old Rambler reappeared as the new American, with the song popularizing the re-released car and making AMC the only automaker have increased sales during the recession of 1958.

Off-road

Mexico hosted a grueling mostly off-road race, the Baja 500. In July 1967, a Rambler American in the passenger-car category was driven by Spencer Murray and Ralph Poole and finished the run in a record 31 hours.

American Motors then got serious in this type of racing and signed up James Garner‘s “American International Racers” (AIR) team to a three-year contract. Garner’s shops prepared ten 1969 SC/Ramblers provided by AMC. The cars were modified for the punishing Baja 500 race. Raising the suspension and using Goodyear tires on 10×15-inch wheels increased ground clearance. All window glass was removed and roll cages were installed. The cars had 44 US gal (167 L; 37 imp gal) fuel tanks. Two cars were further modified with four-wheel drive. The AIR team built AMC’s 390 cu in (6.4 L) V8 engines to blueprint tolerances, thus increasing horsepower to 410 hp (306 kW; 416 PS) at the flywheel. The cars were capable of 140 mph (230 km/h) runs along smooth straights at about 7000 rpm in fourth gear.

On 11 June 1969, eight of the Ramblers were entered into the passenger-car category and the two 4WD versions were in the Experimental class. Garner did not drive in the race because of a film commitment in Spain. Seven of the Ramblers finished the grueling race, taking three of the top five places in the passenger-car class. One of the four-wheel-drive cars came in fourth in its class. The AIR team included a car with Bob Bondurant and Tony Murphy that took first place. For one of the winning Rambler drivers, this was his first ever race and the experience launched the career of Walker Evans.

Rally racing

Rambler Americans raced with good results in the Shell 4000 Rally that was held in Canada. In 1968, for example, the grueling 4,000-mile (6,437 km) rally over the often-tortuous muddy road from Calgary to Halifax, the AMC team finished 2nd, 3rd, and 5th winning the Manufacturers Team Award.

Drag racing

American Motors was not actively involved in auto racing during the early 1960s as not to glamorize dangerous speeds and driving. The automaker ran national advertisements: “Why don’t we enter high-performance Rambler V-8s in racing? Because the only race Rambler cares about is the human race.”

However, independent AMC dealerships began sponsoring cars in drag racing events. Preston Honea achieved fame with the 1964 “Bill Kraft Rambler” American from Norwalk, California. The car had a transplanted AMC V8 engine that was bored out to 418 cu in (6.8 L) with four carburetors on special intake manifold and featured a transistorized ignition system as well as an Isky 505-A camshaft. The big engine from an Ambassador added only 80 pounds (36.3 kg) more than the venerable 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) straight-6normally found in the small two-door American. However, with its 8200 rpm redline, the Rambler ran 112 mph (180 km/h) at the Fontana dragstrip.

After the departure of Roy Abernethy, AMC eagerly sponsored Rambler Americans in various motorsport venues and produced a factory-ready Rambler American for drag racing — as noted above with the 1969 SC/Rambler.

Battery power experiments

In 1959, AMC and Sonotone Corporation announced work on a car to be powered by a “self-charging” battery. It was to have sintered plate nickel-cadmium batteries. During the 1960s, AMC partnered with Gulton Industries to develop a new battery based on lithium and to use an advanced speed controller designed by Victor Wouk. However, the actual running prototype was a 1969 Rambler American station wagon converted from 290 cu in (4.8 L) V8 to an all car electric using nickel–cadmium batteries. Power consisted of 160 cells, each rated at 75 ampere-hours (Gulton KO-75), arranged in two banks of 80 cells each, and connected in parallel. The equipment Wouk designed “gave it good acceleration, but there was still a problem with the car’s range.” Later, AMC and Gulton developed the Amitron and the similar Electron city cars.

Legacy

 Rambler ’65 album cover

 3rd Rock from the Sun museum display

American Motors used the compact Rambler American chassis as the basis for the 1968 Javelin, a two-door hardtop marketed as a “hip”, dashing, and affordable pony car, as well as available in several muscle carperformance versions.

In 1988 Ben Vaughn, a musician and a longtime Rambler automobile fan, released El Rambler Dorado on his Blows Your Mind album. He later recorded an entire album in his 1965 Rambler American. Released in 1997 by Rhino Records and titled Rambler ’65, Vaughn turned his car into a makeshift studio. Putting the recording equipment inside his Rambler was a gimmick or an act of showmanship, but according to most reviews, the music he created inside his car is “timeless” rock roll. The Rambler ’65 24-minute music video also includes vintage AMC TV advertising clips.

Vaughn also achieved success in Hollywood as the composer for the hit NBC television series 3rd Rock from the Sun in which the main characters use a 1962 Rambler American convertible. The car is featured in posters and in the 100th episode (during season 5) entitled “The Fifth Solomon”, the space aliens “learn that it’s possible to get emotionally attached to a car” after they crash their Rambler and have no insurance.

During his 2006-2007 campaign for U.S. president, Mitt Romney sat in a Rambler American at fund-raising events as a way to emphasize the need for more efficient cars. He also stated that his father (George W. Romney) “was a man ahead of his time,” at campaign stops and that “He also coined the term ‘gas-guzzling dinosaurs.’ That’s what we’re driving today and that’s got to change.”

Collectibility

At more than 50 years after it was produced, the mission of the first generation Rambler American as “an affordable, stylish people hasn’t changed – though now it’s rolling stingily down the road as a collector’s item rather than a daily beater.” The economical car “that put Detroit on notice is one of today’s most affordable, fun collectibles.”

Benefiting from network television exposure, the 1962 Rambler American convertible became “a hot ticket item” for collectors after it began to appear regularly on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun with owners of rusty cars asking high prices and prime examples commanding upward of $14,000. A fully restored 1962 convertible was given to Mitt Romney on his 60th birthday by his son, Tagg, in 2008.

The “outlandishly adorned” limited-edition, mid-model year addition to the Rambler line “built under the aegis of the Hurst shifter people” is unique. The SC/Rambler has a strong collector following, with websites, clubs, and a registry.

The SC/Rambler has become a popular muscle car to replicate because of the ease of installing a powerful AMC V8 drivetrain into one of the large number of inexpensive 1966 through 1969 Rambler Americans. To identify a true SC/Rambler, it must be a hardtop and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) must have the letter M in the third digit and the engine code of X as the seventh digit.

Most SC/Ramblers took extensive abuse as they were raced hard, and there are stories of cars being sold with their time slips passing along with the vehicle. According to Old Cars Weekly magazine, “a No. 1 condition example can still be had for mid five figures. A muscle devotee looking for a fun machine with lots of investment potential can’t miss with a SC/Rambler.”

• Rambler 1969

Mid-sized

• Rambler Six and V8: 1957 – 1960

Rambler Six and V8

Rambler Six and Rambler V8
1960 Rambler Six sedan
Overview
Manufacturer	American Motors Corporation(AMC)
Production	1956 – 1960
Assembly	United States: Kenosha, Wisconsin Belgium: Haren (Vilvoorde Renault Factory) Mexico: Mexico City and Monterrey
Designer	Edmund E. Anderson
Body and chassis
Body style	4-door sedan 4-door wagon 4-door hardtop sedan 4-door hardtop station wagon
Layout	FR layout
Powertrain
Engine	195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 120 bhp (89 kW) (1956 only) 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) I6 125 or 135 bhp 250 cu in (4.1 L) V8 190 bhp (140 kW) (except 1956)
Dimensions
Wheelbase	108 in (2,743 mm)
Chronology
Successor	Rambler Classic

The Rambler Six and the Rambler V8 are intermediate sized automobiles that were built and marketed by American Motors Corporation (AMC) from 1956 to 1960.

Launched on 15 December 1955, the 1956 model year Rambler Six ushered a “new era in motoring has begun” according to George W. Romney, President of AMC. In 1956, the Rambler was sold through bothNash and Hudson networks of dealerships. This resulted from the merger of the two companies to form AMC in 1954.

The new Rambler line created and defined a new market segment, the “compact car” as the automobile classification was called at that time. A V8 engine powered model, the Rambler V8, was added in 1957.

Background

The new for 1956 Rambler was arguably “the most important car American Motors ever built” in that it not only created and defined a new market segment, emphasized the virtues of compact design, but also enabled the automaker to prosper in the post-World War II marketplace that shifted from a seller’s to a buyer’s market. The sales war between Ford and Chevrolet conducted during 1953 and 1954 had left little business for the much smaller “independent” automakers trying to compete against the standard models offered by the domestic Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler).

American Motors focused its resources to introduce a line of smaller cars than were then available from the domestic Big Three for the 1957 model year. The designs were developed by its Styling Director, Edmund E. Anderson and they were aimed at a new market segment. Although conventional business thinking states that bigger profits were made from sales of bigger cars, American Motors lacked the resources to develop a full range of models targeting different market segments. As the chairman and president of AMC, George W. Romney also avoided a head-to-head battle with the U.S. automakers by focusing the company on the compact car.^[3] He “felt that with the Rambler I had the car of the future” and Romney “bet the farm on the Rambler” by spending US$5.4 million on a “crash program to bring the 1957 Rambler to market a year earlier.”

Model years

1956

 1956 Hudson Rambler Custom sedan, with dealer accessory window insect screens

The four-door Ramblers for the 1956 model year were completely redesigned, with a characteristic swept-back C-pillars (the Fashion Safety Arch), unusual wing windows on the rear doors, inboard, grille-mounted headlamps, as well as “the widest windshield” of any car. The short-wheelbase two-door (Nash Rambler) versions were no longer available. The new line retained the 108-inch (2,743 mm) wheelbase that was used for the previous four-door versions of the Nash Rambler, but the overall length was increased by 5 inches (127 mm), to 191.14 in (4,855 mm). The Rambler was substantially smaller outside compared to the other popular domestic cars of the era, but its interior room was equal to the top-selling “low-priced” field. Construction was also unusual, being unit body (what Nash called Double Safe Single Unit).

The 1956 Rambler models were marketed under both the Nash and Hudson brand names. The cars were almost identical except for minor badge engineeringthat included different logos on the hubcaps, grille insert, and hood emblem.

The new Ramblers came only as four-door models. Along with the usual four-door sedan and station wagon was a new four-door hardtop sedan. Rambler also introduced the industry’s first four-door hardtop station wagon in 1956. The station wagons used the same rear doors as the sedans with the back roof dipped lower over the cargo area and featured a standard roof rack. The wagon models were called Cross Country. An innovation for station wagons was Rambler’s roll-down tailgate window; competitors’ models used upward-hinged windows.

The new car was described as “distinct and different …. can be recognized at any angle from its wide-open competition- type grille to the pronounced arch over rear window.” According to automobile journalist Floyd Clymer, “economy and high-performance do not go hand in hand, but in the Rambler, the owner will find a happy medium … though smaller, is safer than many cars. The welded, unitized body-frame construction offers above-average protection in collisions.” The single-unit construction that was used by AMC on all of its models provided a marketing advantage by offering buyers a $25,000 personal automobile injury insurance policy at no extra cost.

The Typhoon straight-six for the new Rambler was based on the previous 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) block, but was improved and featured overhead valves and produced 120 bhp (89 kW; 122 PS). It was the only engine available in the 1956 Rambler because the automaker was still developing its own V8. This engine was said to deliver 33% more power than the 1955 version, and – at up to 30 miles per US gallon (7.8 L/100 km; 36 mpg_-imp) – provided better fuel economy than the competition. The new Rambler also changed to a 12-volt electrical system. The automatic transmission was the GM-produced Hydramatic (called Flashaway by AMC). A torque tube drive system was used with a four-wheel coil spring suspension instead of the previous Hotchkiss drive setup.

The interiors were offered in fifteen colors, and offered “genuine leather” (in six colors) as an option. The station wagons were popular with buyers, and in addition to power brakes (standard on Custom models), frequently ordered options included power steering, two- and three-tone exterior color schemes, a continental tire, Weather Eye heating and air conditioning system, as well as dealer accessory window insect screens to use with the individually adjustable and reclining front seats that could be used as a bed.

The new Rambler model became the replacement for the large-sized Nash and Hudson “legacy” models that were now suffering from dwindling sales. On the other hand, the Rambler was the only completely new “popular-priced” car in 1956. Consumer reaction to the 1956 Rambler was very positive. Advertising for the new car urged potential buyers to “Drive the Rambler – You’ll Make the Smart Switch for 1956.” Almost 74 percent of surveyed Rambler owners by Popular Mechanics described their cars as small and roomy, as well as easy to park and operate.

Sales for the inaugural year totaled 66,573. Of these, 20,496 were badged as Hudsons. Soon, the all-new “compact-sized” (as vehicles were defined at that time) models experienced a “sales explosion”.

1957

 1957 Rambler Cross-Country Custom

In 1957, the Rambler was established as a separate marque and these models became the foundation for the new company’s best sales performance through the late 1950s. Sales increased to 82,000.

The four-door sedans and station wagons were offered as well as a four-door hardtop body style with no “B” pillar. The most basic trim level, Deluxe, was essentially for fleet customers and only available with the I6 engine. The Super and Custom trimmed models came with the I6 or AMC’s new V8 engine. The Deluxe had no exterior side trim or series name, the Super came with a single full-length body side molding and a “Super” script emblem, and the Custom featured dual full body side moldings with a “Custom” script emblem and a round “R” medallion on the top of the front fenders.

The new Rambler Cross Country was “typical of the stylish, yet highly practical wagons built by AMC in the 1950s” and was offered in solid colors or two- or three-tone paint schemes. Only a few station wagons “were available in 1957 with the very vogue hardtop configuration”, and Rambler’s Cross Country station wagon in Custom trim carried a relatively low price of $2,715. Options included seat belts, padded dash, and child proof door locks.

This was the first year the Rambler offered a new 250 cu in (4.1 L) V8 engine, producing 190 bhp (142 kW; 193 PS). A companion model in four-door hardtop style and featuring AMC’s new high-performance 327 cu in (5.4 L) V8 was also introduced in 1957. This was the Rambler Rebel and it was an early “muscle car.” With overdrive, the 1957 model was capable of up to 32 mpg_-US (38 mpg_-imp; 7.4 L/100 km).

The first American journalist to drive a U.S. automobile uncensored through the Soviet Union was Harry Walton in a brand new 1957 Rambler station wagon assembled in Belgium. The engine was detuned at the Brussels assembly plant to run on 74 octane gasoline available only in certain gas stations, and on one occasion, “to the Rambler’s eternal credit it swallowed the [ordinary Soviet] stuff, protesting mildly.” The heavily loaded wagon cruised at 60 mph (97 km/h) and travelled 22.35 miles per US gallon (10.52 L/100 km; 26.84 mpg_-imp). The journalist drove 3,500 miles (5,633 km) from the Polish border near Brest to the port city of Yalta, and reported the Rambler station wagon “galvanized Russians into attention everywhere.”

1958

 1958 Rambler Custom sedan

 Fifty-six carloads of new 1958 Ramblers for Avis Rent a Car in Florida

The 1958 Rambler Six’s tailfinned rear

George W. Romney stated “the Hudson and Nash would remain distinctive in size from the Rambler in 1958.” Designs were developed for the big-car Hudson and Nash models to share the Rambler automobile platform by stretching the body about nine inches ahead of the cowl. However, the Rambler become the new AMC division following the discontinuation of both the Nash and Hudson lines after the 1957 model year.

The larger-sized 1958 Ramblers incorporated “more than 100 changes and were outwardly quite different from their predecessors.” The cars received “a complete reskin that made the 1956 bodies look a bit bulkier”. This major redesign featured new front and rear fenders. A new front end moved the headlamps from inside the grille to the top of the front fenders and featured twin headlamps on each side on the “Super” and “Custom” models, as well as full-length bodyside moldings. The basic “Deluxe” trim models had no side trim and came standard with single headlights, but the new “quad” headlights were optional.

The 1958 Ramblers now had the industry’s requisite flared tailfins. The Rambler line was one of the last among the domestic automobiles to incorporate tailfins to its body design (and also one of the first to eliminate them). When asked why the 1958 Ramblers featured this styling feature, AMC’s Chairman and CEO George W. Romney responded, “If we have to use tail fins to get people to try compact cars, we’ll use tail fins. Later on we will certainly be able to do away with them, and to build clean, simple, uncluttered cars.”

By 1958, Rambler was selling half of its production as station wagons, proportionately more of that body style than any other automaker. All Rambler station wagons carried the Cross Country name. The innovative hardtop(no “B-pillar”) station wagon body style was no longer available in the Rambler line, as it was reserved for the 1958 Ambassador models. The Rambler station wagons featured a step down roof over their rear cargo area and a standard roof rack. The new design also featured wider rear openings with a frame-less roll-down rear window and a “one-finger” latch on the spring-assisted tailgate. Rambler’s new one-piece, fold-down station wagon tailgate was adopted by all the U.S. automakers by 1961. A horizontal roller-type “window blind” was available to hide the lower half of the wagon’s 80 cubic feet (2,265 l) cargo area. Motor Trend did a comparison test of four 1958 station wagons (Rambler, Ford, DeSoto, and Oldsmobile) and found the compact Rambler could hold as much

The Rambler models continued to be the shortest cars in the U.S. – at 191 inches (4,851 mm) in total length – with room for six-passengers. Rambler’s marketing focused on having “the best of both: 1. American big car room and comfort. 2. European small car economy and handling ease.” Powering the Rambler Six was AMC’s new 127 hp (95 kW; 129 PS) overhead valve (OHV) 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) straight-six. NASCAR tests showed the Rambler Six had a $0.01 per mile gasoline cost when equipped with overdrive transmission. A V8 engine was available in the Rambler Rebel models.

A Borg-Warner torque converter “Flash-O-Matic” automatic transmission, with the “then-trendy pushbutton” gear selection on the far left side of the instrument panel, was optional. Also new on the left side for the driver was a step-on parking brake pedal.

American Motors instituted a new paint system for the 1958 model year. All Ramblers received rust-inhibiting by submerging assembled bodies up to their roof into a large 40-foot (12 m) vat of primer (not sprayed on) before the color coat was applied, a revolutionary process that was later copied by other automakers. After drying, an additional wax-based compound was sprayed inside girders, rocker panels, fenders, and other hidden areas in the car bodies.

American Motors promoted the 1958 Rambler in several advertising campaigns. One approach featured George W. Romney challenging “the big car concept.” A series of print ads also mocked the domestic Big Three automakers’ standard-sized cars featuring illustrations by famous cartoonists showing the compact Rambler easily getting through places that would get the large “gas guzzling dinosaur” automobiles stuck. An example is the story, “The Millionaire and The Rambler” by Otto Soglow. Chon Day illustrated a story on how “Rambler foils bank robbery.”

Sales of the Rambler six and V8 increased to 119,000 during a year when all U.S. cars were down in volume. The 1958 Ramblers “sold like hotcakes” and returned the smallest U.S. automaker to profitability. Together with the smaller Rambler American line, AMC “broke sales records” in 1958 as consumers valued basic transportation from their automobiles and no longer cared “how big their cars were.” Although in the midst of the Recession of 1958, Rambler captured seventh place in automobile sales.

1959

 1959 Rambler Six sedan

Improvements to the Rambler included new side trim with a full-width die-cast grille, as well as thicker brake linings and larger brakes for V8-powered cars. Engineering changes included fuel economy improvements with lower axle ratios and more efficient carburetor for the I6 engines. An electrically engaged overdrive unit behind the three-speed manual transmission was also available. To increase longevity, Rambler mufflers were aluminum-coated on the inside and zinc-coated on the outside. On cars with automatic transmission, engine starting was now incorporated into the neutral pushbutton, thus eliminating the ignition key start switch. Accidental starter engagement was prevented by a lockout when the engine was running.

 1959 Rambler Country Club hardtop with optional continental tire

A total of 11 models were offered for 1959, all four-door versions of sedans, station wagons, and Country Club hardtop (no B-pillar) body styles. Premium options and conveniences continued to be offered including “Weather Eye” air-conditioning, air suspension on V8s, limited slip differentials, an exterior mounted continental tire, as well as the American Motors’ exclusive individually adjustable and reclining front seats with headrests. Sales of the Rambler Six and V8 continued to increase.

1960

 1960 Rambler Six Deluxe sedan, the lowest-priced equipment level

The 1960 models featured numerous exterior and interior design changes. The greenhouse was made “lighter” with a narrower C-pillar and roof profile, as well as slanting both the windshield and rear window at a greater angle providing for an “airy cabin.” The front end was simplified, while the tailfins became smaller thus highlighting the new tall taillamps. The overall length was trimmed by 1.6 inches (41 mm) because of a new spit-bumper design. Riding on 15-inch wheels the Rambler appeared to be larger than it actually was. The interior was also revised and the instrument panel now incorporated all instrumentation within a large oval in front of the driver.

 1960 Rambler Super Cross Country, rear view

The practice of separate Six and Rebel V8 models now ended with the focus on the Rambler name and the trim three levels: “Deluxe”, “Super”, and “Custom”. Each was offered with “Economy 6 or Rebel V-8 engines.”

In 1960, the Rambler line reached third place in total annual industry sales in the United States. The 1960 Rambler Six with its 127 hp (95 kW; 129 PS) 195.6 cu in (3.2 L) engine became the best selling model for AMC with 297,368 sold for the year.

Overseas assembly

Belgium

American Motors established agreement with French automaker Renault to assemble Ramblers from CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits in the Vilvoorde Renault Factory in Haren, Belgium. The cars were sold and serviced through Renault dealers in Algeria, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The Rambler was sold as an “executive car” in these markets.

Mexico

Midsize Rambler models were assembled in Mexico during two different periods, the first under Armadora Mexicana based in Mexico City between 1956 and 1957, and the second under Planta REO based in Monterrey, between 1958 and 1959. Due to low sales volume, American Motors terminated its contract with Armadora Mexicana that dated back to 1950, Rambler models were again imported from the United States (between 1957 and 1958), sold through a limited network of dealerships of which most were located in Mexico City, until the agreement with Planta REO was formalized. The problem of low sales continued under Planta REO and AMC cancelled the contract. Importation of AMC vehicles into Mexico resumed until a third domestic production partner was established. Willys Mexicana, the company what would become Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) was the third local company that AMC would sign an agreement in 1960, but VAM did not assemble the Rambler Six and Rambler V8 models.

Legacy

American Motors began the process of differentiating the Rambler brand name from its various sizes and similar model names. New nameplates were introduced; the Rambler Six and Rambler Rebel V8 were both renamed the Rambler Classic in 1961.

This is the end of part I

• Rambler Rebel: 1957 – 1960
• Rambler Ambassador: 1958 – 1965
• Rambler Classic: 1961 – 1966
• Rambler Typhoon: 1964
• Rambler Rebel: 1967
• Rambler Marlin: 1965

Show cars

• Rambler Palm Beach: 1950
• Rambler Tarpon: 1964

International

• Rambler AMX: 1969 – 1970 (Australia)
• Rambler Hornet: 1970 – 1975 (Australia)
• Rambler Javelin: 1970 – 1973 (Australia)
• Rambler Matador: 1971 – 1977 (Australia)
• Rambler Rebel: 1967 – 1971 (Australia)

International production

Companies which undertook the production of Rambler vehicles outside of the United States included the following:

• Australian Motor Industries 1960 – 1978
• Campbell Motor Industries (New Zealand): 1960 – 1975
• Constructora Venezolana de Vehículos: 1968 – 1974
• Industrias Kaiser Argentina: 1962 – 1972
• Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos: 1963 – 1983

DELAHAYE Cars Tours France 1895 – 1954

Delahaye

Industry	Manufacturing
Founded	1895
Founder	Emile Delahaye
Defunct	1954
Headquarters	Tours (France)
Products	Cars

Delahaye automobile was an automotive manufacturing company founded by Emile Delahaye in 1894, in Tours, France, his home town. His first cars were belt-driven, with single- or twin-cylinder engines mounted at the rear. His Type One was an instant success, and he urgently needed investment capital and a larger manufacturing facility. Both were provided by a new Delahaye owner and fellow racer, George Morane, and his brother-in-law Leon Desmarais, who partnered with Emile in the incorporation of the new automotive company, “Societe Des Automobiles Delahaye”, in 1898. All three worked with the foundry workers to assemble the new machines, but middle-aged Emile was not in good health. In January 1901, he found himself unable to capably continue, and resigned, selling his shares to his two equal partners. Emile Delahaye died soon after, in 1905. Delahaye had hired two instrumental men, Charles Weiffenbach and Amadee Varlet in 1898, to assist the three partners. Both were graduate mechanical engineers, and they remained with Delahaye their entire working careers. Weiffenbach was appointed Manager of Operations, and, with the blessing of both George Morane and Leon Desmarais, assumed control over all of Delahaye’s operations and much of its decision-making, in 1906. Amadee Varlet was the company’s design-engineer, with a number of innovative inventions to his credit, generated between 1905 and 1914, which Delahaye patented. These included the twin-cam multi-valve engine, and the V6 configuration. Varlet continued in this role until he eventually took over the Drawing Office, at 76 years of age, when much younger Jean Francois was hired in 1932 as chief design-engineer. In 1932, Varlet was instructed by Weiffenbach, under direction from majority shareholder Madam Desmarais, Leon Desmarais’ widow, to set up the company’s Racing Department, assisted by Jean Francois. <Club Delahaye archive>. Those who knew him well at the factory affectionately referred to Charles Weiffenbach as “Monsieur Charles”.

History

Delahaye 135 MS Pourtout cabriolet

Delahaye began experimenting with belt-driven cars while manager of the Brethon Foundry and Machine-works in Tours, in 1894. These experiments encouraged an entry in the 1896 Paris–Marseille–Paris race, held between 24 September-3 October 1896, fielding one car for himself and one for sportsman Ernest Archdeacon. The winning Panhard averaged 15.7 mph (25.3 km/h); Archdeacon came sixth, averaging 14 mph (23 km/h), while Delahaye himself was eighth, averaging 12.5 mph (20.1 km/h).

For the 1897 Paris-Dieppe, the 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) four-cylinder Delahayes ran in four- and six-seater classes, with a full complement of passengers. Archdeacon was third in the four-seaters behind a De Dion-Bouton and a Panhard, Courtois winning the six-seater class, ahead of the only other car in the class.

In March 1898, 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) the Delahayes of Georges Morane and Courtois came sixteenth and twenty-eighth at the Marseilles-Nice rally, while at the Course de Perigeux in May, De Solages finished sixth in a field of ten. The July Paris-Amsterdam-Paris earned a satisfying class win for Giver in his Delahaye; the overall win went to Panhard.

Soon after the new company was formed in 1898, the firm moved its manufacturing from Tours to Paris, into its new factory (a former hydraulic machinery plant that Morane and his brother-in-law Leon Desmarais had inherited from Morane’s father). Charles Weiffenbach was named Operations Manager. Delahaye would produce three models there, until the close of the 19th century: two twins, the 2.2-litre 4.5 hp (3.4 kW; 4.6 PS) Type 1 and 6 hp (4.5 kW; 6.1 PS) Type 2, and the lighter Type 0 (which proved capable of up to 22 mph (35 km/h)), with a 1.4-liter single rated between 5 and 7 hp (3.7 and 5.2 kW; 5.1 and 7.1 PS). All three had bicycle-style steering, water-cooled engines mounted in the rear, automatic valves, surface carburetors, and trembler coil ignition; drive was a combination of belt and chain, with three forward speeds and one reverse.

In 1899, Archdeacon piloted an 8 hp (6.0 kW; 8.1 PS) racer in the Nice-Castellane-Nice rally, coming eighth, while teammate Buissot’s 8 hp (6.0 kW; 8.1 PS) was twelfth.

Founder Emile Delahaye retired in 1901, leaving Desmarais and Morane in control; Weiffenbach took over from them in 1906. Delahaye’s racing days were over with Emile Delahaye’s death. Charles Weiffenbach had no interest in racing, and focused his production on reeponsible motorized automotive chassis, heavy commercial vehicles, and early firetrucks for the French government. Race-cars had become a thing of the past for Delahaye, until 1933, when Madam Desmarais caused her company to change direction a hundred-and-eighty degree, and return to racing.

The new 10B debuted in 1902. It had a 2,199 cc (134.2 cu in) (100 by 140 mm (3.9 by 5.5 in)) vertical twin rated 12/14 hp by RAC, mounted in front, with removable cylinder head, steering wheel (rather than bicycle handles or tiller), and chain drive. Delahaye also entered the Paris-Vienna rally with a 16 hp (12 kW; 16 PS) four; Pirmez was thirty-seventh in the voiturette class. At the same year’s Ardennes event, Perrin’s 16 hp (12 kW; 16 PS) four came tenth.

Also in 1902, the singles and twins ceased to be offered except as light vans; before production ceased in 1904, about 850 had been built.

Delahaye’s first production four, the Type 13B, with 24/27 hp 4.4-litre, appeared in 1903. The model range expanded in 1904, including the 4.9-litre 28 hp (21 kW; 28 PS) four-cylinder Type 21, the mid-priced Type 16, and the two-cylinder Type 15B. These were joined in 1905 by a chain-driven 8-litre luxury model, one of which was purchased by King Alfonso.

All 1907 models featured half-elliptic springs at the rear as well as transverse leaf springs, and while shaft drive appeared that year, chain drive was retained on luxury models until 1911. In 1908, the Type 32 was the company’s first to offer an L-head monoblock engine.

Protos began licence production of Delahayes in Germany in 1907, while in 1909, h. M. Hobson began importing Delahayes to Britain. Also in 1909, White pirated the Delahaye design; the First World War interrupted any efforts to recover damages.

Delahaye invented and pioneered the V6 engine in 1911, with a 30° 3.2-litre twin-cam, in the Type 44; the invention is credited to Amadee Varlet, Delahaye’s chief design-engineer at the time. The Type 44 was not a success and production stopped in 1914. It had been designed by Amadee Varlet, who had joined Delahaye at the same time that Charles Weiffenback was hired by Emile Delahaye, in 1898. The Type 44 was the only V-6 engine ever made by Delahaye, and it was the last time the company used a twin-cam engine.

Delahaye engineer Amadee Varlet designed the Delahaye “Titan” marine engine, an enormous cast-iron four cylinder engine that was fitted into purpose-built speedboat “La Dubonnet” which briefly held the World Speed Record on Water. With the ‘Titan’ Amadee Varlet had invented the multi-valve twin-cam engine in 1905, the same year that Emile Delahaye died.

At the Paris factory, Delahaye continued to manufacture cars, trucks, and a few buses. By the end of World War I, their major income was from their truck business that included France’s firetrucks.

After the war, Delahaye switched to a modest form of assembly line production, following the example of Ford, hampered by the “extensive and not particularly standardized range” of cars for Chenard et Walker, and itself, and farm machines for the FAR Tractor Company. The collaboration with FAR Tractor Company and Chenard-Walcker did not last long. This continued until continually reduced sales volume made a change necessary, for the company to survive. It has been alleged that Monsieur Charles met with his friend, competitor Ettore Bugatti, to seek his opinion on turning Delahaye around. Whether or not this meeting actually occurred, it is on record that Madam Leon Desmarais, the majority shareholder and Leon Desmarais’ widow, instructed Charles Weiffenbach to come up with a new higher quality automotive-chassis line with vastly improved horsepower, and re-establish a racing department. That pivotal decision was made in 1932, the year that Jean Francois was hired. By 1933, Delahaye was back in the racing game, and promptly went about winning events and setting records.

At the 1933 Paris Salon, Delahaye showed the Superluxe, with a 3.2-litre six, transverse independent front suspension, and Cotal preselector or synchromesh-equipped manualtransmission. It would be accompanied in the model range by a 2,150 cc (131 cu in) four (essentially a cut-down six), and a sporting variant, the 18 Sport.

In 1934, Delahaye set eighteen class records at Montlhéry, in a specially-prepared, stripped and streamlined 18 Sport. They also introduced the 134N, a 12cv car with a 2.15-litre four-cylinder engine, and the 18cv Type 138, powered by a 3.2-litre six — both engines derived from their successful truck engines. In 1935, success in the Alpine Trial led to the introduction of the sporting Type 135 “Coupe des Alpes”. By the end of 1935, Delahaye had won eighteen minor French sports car events and a number of hill-climbs, and came fifth at Le Mans.

Racing success brought success to their car business as well, enough for Delahaye to buy Delage in 1935. Delage cars continued in production from 1935 to 1951, and were finally superseded by the Type 235, a modestly updated 135. The truck business continued to thrive. Some of the great coachbuilders who provided bodies for Delahayes include Figoni et Falaschi, Chapron, and Letourneur et Marchand, and Joseph Saoutchik, as well as Guillore, Faget-Varlet, Pourtout, and a few others less well known.

Delahaye ran four 160 hp (120 kW; 160 PS) cars (based on the Type 135) in the 1936 Ulster TT, placing second to Bugatti, and entered four at the Belgian 24 Hours, coming 2-3-4-5 behind an Alfa Romeo.

American heiress Lucy O’Reilly Schell approached the company with an offer to pay the development costs to build short “Competition Court” 2.70- metre wheelbase Type 135 cars to her specifications for rallying. Sixteen were produced, most having been uniformly bodied by “Lacanu” a small coachbuilding firm owned and operated by Olivier Lecanu-Deschamps. Joseph Figoni also bodied one of these chassis. Lecanu could respond quickly, build economically, and was favored by Delahaye for its race-cars. All four Type 145 race-cars were bodied by Lecanu, to a weirdly homely design by Jean Francois. Lecanu both designed and built the last of the four Type 145 bodies, this one on chassis 48775.

In 1937, René Le Bègue and Julio Quinlin won the Monte Carlo Rally driving a Delahaye. Delahaye also ran first and second at Le Mans.^[4] Against the government-sponsored juggernauts Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, Delahaye brought out the Type 145, powered by a new, complicated 4½-liter V12 with three camshafts located in the block, with pushrod-actuated valves and four overhead rocker-shafts, dual Bosch magneto ignition, and triple Stromberg carburettors. Called “Million Franc Delahaye” after a victory in the Million Franc Race, the initial Type 145, chassis 48771, was driven by René Dreyfus to an average speed 91.07 mph (146.56 km/h) over 200 kilometres (120 mi) at Montlhéry in 1937, earning a Fr 200,000 prize from the government. Dreyfus also scored a victory in the Ecurie Bleu Type 145, again number 48771 at Pau, relying on superior fuel economy to beat the more powerful Mercedes-Benz W154, in 1938. Third place in the same race was claimed by Gianfranco Comotti, driving Delahaye Type 145 number 48775. Dreyfus brought his Type 145 number 48771 to its second grand-prix win at Cork, in Ireland, but the German teams had boycotted this event, being another between-the-houses race where they could not exploit their superior power. Type 135s also won the Paris-Nice and Monte Carlo Rallys, and LeMans, that year, while a V12 model (Type 145 number 48773) was fourth in the Mille Miglia. These victories combined with French patriotism to create a wave of demand for Delahaye cars, up until the German occupation of France during World War II. The Type 145 was also the basis for five grand-touring Type 165s., three of which exist today. The other two were demolished during the second World war.

In early 1940, one hundred Type 134N and Type 168 chassis were (Renault-bodied) as military cars built under contract for France’s Army. Private sales had been ordered by the government to cease in June, 1939, but small numbers of cars continued to be built for the occupying German forces until at least 1942.

After the Second World War

After World War II, in late 1945, production of the Type 135 was resumed, all with new styling by Philippe Charbonneaux. The Type 175, with a 4.5-litre inline overhead-valve six, was introduced in 1948; this, and the related Type 178 and 180, proved unsuccessful.The Type 175, 178 and 180 were replaced by the Type 235 in 1951, with an up-rated 135 engine producing 152 hp (113 kW; 154 PS). After the war, the depressed French economy and an increasingly punitive luxury tax regime aimed at luxurious non-essential products, and cars with engines above 2-litres, made life difficult for luxury auto-makers. Like all the principal French automakers, Delahaye complied with government requirements in allocating the majority of its vehicles for export, and in 1947 88% of Delahaye production was exported (compared to 87% of Peugeot and 80% of Talbot output), primarily to French colonies, including those in Africa. Nevertheless, Delahaye volumes, with 573 cars produced in 1948 (against 34,164 by market-leader Citroen), were unsustainably low.

Until the early 1950s, a continuing demand for military vehicles enabled the company to operate at reasonable albeit low volumes, primarily thanks to demand for the Type 163 trucks, sufficient to keep the business afloat.

A 1-ton capacity light truck sharing its 3.5-litre six-cylinder overhead-valve engine with the company’s luxury cars (albeit with lowered compression ratio and reduced power output) made its debut at the 1949 Paris Motor Show. During the next twelve months, this vehicle, the Type 171, spawned several brake-bodied versions, the most interesting of which were the ambulance and 9-seater familiale variant. The vehicle’s large wheels and high ground clearance suggest it was targeted at markets where many roads were largely dust and mud, and the 171 was, like the contemporary Renault Colorale which it in some respects resembled, intended for use in France’s African colonies. The vehicle also enjoyed some export success in Brazil, and by 1952 the Type 171 was being produced at the rate of approximately 30 per month.

As passenger car sales slowed further, the last new model, a 2.0-litre Jeep-like vehicle known as VLRD (Véhicule Léger de Reconnaissance (Delahaye)), sometimes known as the VRD, or VLR, was released in 1951. The French army believed that this vehicle offered a number of advantages over the “traditional” American built Jeep of the period. It was in 1951 that Delahaye discontinued production of the Types 175, 178 and 180. During 1953 the company shipped 1,847 VRDs as well as 537 “special” military vehicles: the number of Delahaye- or Delage-badged passenger cars registered in the same year was in that context near negligible, at 36.

Financial difficulties created by an acute shortage of wealthy car buyers intensified. Delahaye’s main competitor, Hotchkiss, managed to negotiate a licensing agreement with American Motors, and obtained sanction to manufacture its JEEP in France. The French army had learned to appreciate the simpler machine, available at a much lower price, and cancelled Delahaye’s contract for the more sophisticated VLR reconnaissance vehicle, dealing a hard blow to Delahaye. In August 1953 the company laid off more than 200 workers and salaried employees. Rumours of management discussions with Hotchkiss over some sort of coming together proved well founded. Hotchkiss were struggling with the same problems, but it was hoped that the two businesses might prove more resilient together than separately, and an agreement was signed by the two company presidents, Pierre Peigney for Delahaye and Paul Richard for Hotchkiss, on 19 March 1954. Delahaye shareholders agreed to the protocol, which amounted to a take over of Delahaye by Hotchkiss, less than three months later, on 9 June. Hotchkiss shut down Delahaye car production. By the end of 1954, for a brief period selling trucks with the Hotchkiss-Delahaye nameplate, the combined firm was itself taken over by Brandt, and by 1955, Delahaye and Hotchkiss were out of the automotive chassis business altogether, having their facilities absorbed by the giant Brandt organization with its own objectives for its captives’ assets. By 1956, the brands Delahaye, Delage, and Hotchkiss had forever disappeared.

Models

1899 built vehicle in 2006

• Delahaye 134 – 1933-40
• Delahaye 135 – 1935-54
• Delahaye 138
• Delahaye 148
• Delahaye 168 – 1938-40
• Delahaye 175 – 1948-51
• Delahaye 178
• Delahaye 180
• Delahaye 235 – 1951-54

Picture gallery

Delahaye 175S Roadster (1949)

Delahaye 135 MS (1936)

Delahaye 235MS Coupé (1953)

Delahaye 135 (1948)

Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi (1939)

Delahaye Cabriolet (1937)

Delahaye 135

1948 Delahaye 135 Cabriolet Pourtout

Delahaye 135 M Pourtout (1948)

Delahaye Tourer (1925)

Delahaye 135M

Delahaye 235M Saoutchik (1953)

Delahaye 178 Drophead Coupé (1949), once owned by Elton John.

For the Buses from Delahaye you have to be Here:

http://myntransportblog.com/2014/01/19/buses-delahaye-tours-france/

RAMSEIER, STREUN and CO. JENZER WORBLAUFEN Switserland

RAMSEIER, STREUN & CO.// WORBLAUFEN

Bern 1929-1958

Worblaufen Citroën TA 15/6

In 1948 “Carrosserie Worblaufen” started to convert Citroëns TA 15/6 into Convertibles.
At the 1949 Geneva Salon Sir Fritz Ramseier presented his 15/6 Cabriolet with four seats, the two doors hinged at the front and four windows.
At the end of the Salon several orders were signed.

There are 16 Tractions converted, all differ in details and it seems only two still remain.

Bentley Mark-VI-Ramseier Front-view

CARROSSERIE WORBLAUFEN 
F. RAMSEIER & CO. Worblaufen
1929 – 1958

One of the most important SchweizerCarrosseriebau-company for passenger cars.  Production of outstandingly elegant Cabriolets and roadsters on Isotta – Fraschini, Mercedes – Benz, Alfa-Romeo and Bugatti chassis.  After the second world war mostly on Talbot – Lago, Delahaye, Citroën and Lancia chassis.  Making some pieces on Jaguar, BMW and Bentley basis.

Traditionell gehaltenes Talbot T26 Record (1947) Cabriolet von Carrosserie Worblaufen

RAMSEIER + JENZER
Biel
1919 – 1989

Initially, touring and city cars light production.  In the 1920s also producing luxury cars on expensive chassis.   In addition to cars, the company always also commercial vehicles and buses produced for private and municipal companies, as well as for the Swiss Post (PTT).  In 1933 the production was hired by car bodies.  After the acquisition of Lauber in Nyon, the company became the most important Carrosserie company of Switzerland.

1934 Worblaufen Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Cabriolet

1935 Worblaufen Bugatti T57 Grand Raid Roadster #57246

1937 Talbot Lago T26 Baby Worblaufen

1937 Worblaufen Bugatti T57 Convertible #57629

1937 Worblaufen Graham Paige Supercharger

1938 Worblaufen Bentley 4 1-4 ltr Allweather Cabriolet

1938 Worblaufen Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 B Cabriolet

1946 Worblaufen Delahaye 135M Drophead Coupe

1947 Worblaufen Bentley Mk VI

1947 Worblaufen Delahaye 135MS

1947 Worblaufen Talbot Lago T26 Record

1948 Berna 1UP138-H 23 pas 5320cc Ramseier&Jenzer

1948 Berna 1 UP 138 R1H Ramseier & Jenzer 5300cc 4cyl

1948 Berna 1UP138-H 5320cc R&J

1948 Berna-R&J (ex M+79’502) CH

1948 Berna-Ramseier und Jenzer 1 OP 128-H © Tobias Maurer

1948 Oldtimer Bus am Saurer Treff R&J

1949 FBW Ramseier&Jenzer AN40

1950 Berna 3, Zwitsers, chassis en motor Saurer carrosserie van Ramseier & Jenzer

1950 Saurer, L4CT 2D Ramseier & Jenzer

1951 Berna with a Ramseier & Jenzer body and was 11 metres (36 ft) long. Trolleybus.

1951 berna bus mit anhanger R&J © Tim Boric

1951 Berna-Ramseier & Jenzer, 4 UPO 463 T1

1951 SAURER 3 C H R&J 310

1951 Saurer 3 C-H with Ramseier & Jenzer coachwork

1951 Worblaufen Hotchkiss 20-50 Anjou Cabriolet

1952-54 Worblaufen Lancia Aurelia B52

1953 Saurer, L4CT 2D R&J

1954 FBW-R&J-SAAS

1955 Worblaufen Alfa Romeo 1900 SS Cabriolet

1957 FBW TL627 R&J

1957 FBW Trolleybus Valparaiso R&J Chili

1957 FBW R&J Valparaiso 00 Trolleybus Chili

1974 FBW 91 GTL R&J O-Gelenkbus ex Verkehrsbetriebe Bern © F Grantl

That was it!

EASTERN EUROPEAN CAR COMBINATION X 1981- 2014

1981

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2007

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

UNKNOWN DATES

END

Buses CHAUSSON France

Buses CHAUSSON France

Chausson Autobussen

1947 Chausson APH

In 1907 werd door drie broers Jules, Gaston en Paul Chausson te Asnières-sur-Seine opgericht de Firma Ateliers Chausson Frères, in latere jaren werd de naam gewijzigd in Société des Usines Chausson. In deze eerste beginjaren hield men zich bezig met de opbouw van koetswerken op wagens, van echte carrosserieën zoals wij dat tegenwoordig kennen was nog geen sprake. Naast de koetswerken hield Chausson zich ook bezig met de bouw van water gekoelde radiateurs, brandstoftanks, buizen, inlaatspruitstukken en uitlaten. In 1942 waren er twee belangrijke aandeelhouders in het bedrijf, t.w. Renault en Peugeot.
Hoewel men in 1945 begon aan de ontwikkeling van een kleine personenauto voorzien van een water gekoelde één cilinder-tweetact motor van 10 PK, waarbij de open carrosserie plaats bood aan twee personen, kwam de serie productie niet op gang, en werd het project afgeblazen.
Men ging zich vanaf 1946 richten op de bouw van autobussen, en niet zonder succes. Door hun uiterlijk met de voor uitstekende radiateur (koeler grill), maakte deze bussen wereld beroemd. In Frankrijk kregen ze naam „nez de cochon“, vrij vertaald tot „varkensneus“. Deze grill vond men ook terug in de Peugeot 1 tons bestelwagen.

Bussen Chausson 47-270348 Hotschkiss 1947 Groote Markt Den Haag

In de latere modellen werd de radiateur binnen de carrosserie verwerkt, en kreeg de grill meer de vorm van een visbek.
De Firma Chausson genoot vooral in het begin van de jaren 1950 een groot succes, in vrijwel geheel Frankrijk waren deze bussen gemeengoed geworden. Door dit succes kon de firma zich expanderen en kon men de firma Chenard & Walcker overnemen. Ook werd er van de Locomotiefbouwer Brissonneau & Lotz nog een afdeling, die auto onderdelen fabriceerde, overgenomen.
In de goede jaren werkten bij Chausson 15.000 medewerkers, werkzaam in de hoofdvestiging Asnières-sur-Seine, en in de nevenvestigingen Creil, Gennevilliers, Laval, Maubeuge, Meudon en Reims.

CHAUSSON EMA 48 Mercedes Benz

In 1959/1960 werd Chausson geheel overgenomen door Renault, eerst nog onder de naam Saviem-Chausson, doch na een paar jaar onder de naam Saviem. Dit merk was al reeds door Renault overgenomen. Maar in de jaren zeventig verdween ook de naam Saviem, en werd Renault zo langzamerhand de enige fabriek van zware bedrijfswagens en autobussen in Frankrijk. Daarmee was niet alleen de tijd van Chausson en Saviem voorbij, maar ook die van Berliet, Citroën (alleen zwaar materieel), Somua ,Unic en Willéme. De Chausson bussen waren vlak na de oorlog zo populair in Nederland omdat het nogal „grote“ bussen waren ten opzichte van al het beschikbare „nood“ materieel. Bovendien liet de Nederlandse importeur Adriaan Beers uit Den Haag in een advertentie weten dat Chausson bussen binnen 3 weken, of wellicht nog korter, leverbaar waren.

CHAUSSON HTM 48 uit 1946

In het boek „La grande aventure des cars Chausson“ in 1988 geschreven door Nicolas Tellier, werd beschreven dat er in 1947 110 stuks complete Chausson autobussen aan Nederlandse bedrijven zijn geleverd. Nu wou ik gaan uitzoeken welke bussen dat zijn geweest, en dan op volgorde van de eerste eigenaar, maar zo U ziet is mijn lijst niet compleet. Ik heb er zelfs meer dan 110 stuks, maar kennelijk is niet altijd de 1e eigenaar bekend, of het kan ook heel goed zijn dat de schrijver misschien circa 110 stuks bedoelde. Opmerkelijk is de afwijkende Snelle Vliet 23 met zijn bergruiten. De meeste Chausson’s in Nederlanden werden geleverd met een Hotchkiss motor (type AH), een enkele kreeg een Panhard (AP) motor. EMA in Valkenswaard, die tevens Mercedes dealer was, verving de Franse motoren door er een Mercedes-Diesel in te plaatsen. Omdat deze motoren veel compacter waren kon de radiateur binnen de carrosserie gebouwd worden, en verviel het authentieke varkensneusje die deze Chausson’s zo kenmerkten. Een ander opvallend detail waren de achterwielen, die waren n.l. enkellucht gemonteerd, d.w.z. de achteras bevat slechts twee wielen, aan beide zijden slechts één wiel. Dit kwam echter op meerdere Franse bussen voor, o.a. bijv. Saviem, Renault, Somua en Isobloc.  Met dank aanhttp://www.openbaarvervoerinboskoop.nl/rubrieken/gerritgunnink/Deel167.html voor deze info in het nederlands.

CHAUSSON HTM 54

De Franse Chausson, een bus die zijn tijd ver vooruit was.

Op verzoek van diverse bezoeker/lezers, een uitleg over deze toch zeer bijzondere bus.

In dit geval schrijven we over een heel bijzondere bus, een type dat bij HTM kwam als een pleister op de wonde, toen men een chronisch gebrek had aan materieel.

Na de oorlog werd door HTM zeer veel moeite gedaan de volledig ontmantelde busdienst zo snel mogelijk weer op gang te brengen. Nu was de grote moeilijkheid hierbij dat vrijwel het gehele wagenpark of geroofd of onbruikbaar was. En….dit was niet alleen bij HTM het geval, bijna alle vervoersbedrijven hadden met de zelfde problemen te kampen.

Zo stonden in de garage een aantal bussen zonder banden en andere belangrijke onderdelen. Men stond dus voor een vrijwel hopeloze taak, temeer daar de onderdelenvoorziening zo vlak na de oorlog ook niet of nauwelijks functioneerde.

GTW 47 Chausson-2

HTM was dus zeer verheugd dat zij erin slaagde in Frankrijk een aantal bussen te bestellen. Deze bestelling vond plaats in december 1945 en toen in februari 1946 als eerste lijn ’T’ weer op straat verscheen waren reeds 4 Chaussons voor deze dienst beschikbaar.

Deze Chaussons hadden een typisch Frans uiterlijk met een klein neusje en waren nog voorzien van een benzinemotor die wist waar de brandstof moest blijven.

Hoewel HTM al voor de oorlog haar wagenpark gestandaardiseerd had op dieseltractie had men gewoon geen keus en was men al met al toch zeer verheugd met deze helpers uit de nood.

Chausson  APH252 Nantes

De 41 t/m 50 werden afgeleverd in een grijze kleur.

Deze wagens hadden aanvankelijk een lopende conducteur en er werd ingestapt door een klapdeur aan de achterzijde van de bus.

In juli en augustus 1946 werd een vervolgserie afgeleverd met de nummers 51 t/m 54.

Deze waren in een groene kleur bij HTM afgeleverd.

De toenmalige pers bezong deze Franse bussen als een zee van ruimte waarin maar liefst 70 passagiers vervoerd konden worden.

Eind mei 1946 waren voor de lijnen ‘G’, ‘K’ en ‘T’ 22 Kromhout-bussen en 10 Chaussons beschikbaar met nog enige Kromhouts in herstelling.

HTM besloot de Franse bussen, die tot nu toe provisorisch voor de dienst geschikt waren gemaakt, te verbouwen tot volwaardige stadsbussen.

Begin 1946 verscheen de ‘41′ in de bekende HTM-uitmonstering. Deze wagen had nu een zitplaats voor de conducteur tegenover de ingang. Van deze ingang was de klapdeur vervangen door de gebruikelijke vouwdeuren. Tevens was een optische signaalinrichting aangebracht.

Hoewel daar wel de mogelijkheden toe aanwezig was werden deze bussen niet voorzien van richtingsfilms. Nadat eerst alleen aan de voorzijde door middel van een bordje de lijnaanduiding werd aangegeven, kregen de 41 t/m 54 tijdens de verbouwing aan de blinde zijde, achterop en vlak voor de achteringang eveneens het bekende bordje met de lijnletter.

Chausson

Als laatste verbouwde Chausson kwam de 46 op 11 januari 1947 weer in dienst.

Voor het stadsbedrijf bleken deze benzinebussen echter toch weinig geschikt.

Er deden zich zeer veel storingen voor. Vooral in de strenge winter van 1946/1947 was het voor de passagiers duwen geblazen. Een constant gebrek aan onderdelen was er de oorzaak van dat vele Chaussons vaak langere tijd gedwongen buiten dienst stonden.

In november 1947 waren deze problemen opgelost en reden alle Chaussons weer, uitgezonderd van de ‘48′ die pas begin 1948 weer rijvaardig was.

HTM bracht in het najaar van 1947 nog richtingsaanduidingen aan boven de voorruit van deze bussen. Vlak onder de niet gebruikte filmkast werd een frame gemonteerd waar de lijnletter- en bestemmingsborden ingeschoven konden worden.

Deze richtingsborden waren bruin van kleur met witte- en gele letters.

Toen er nieuwe bussen voor de dienst beschikbaar kwamen verhuisden de Chaussons al snel naar het tweede plan. Een grote handicap van deze wagens was het zeer grote benzineverbruik waardoor het niet mogelijk was dat deze bussen een hele dienst reden. Onderweg moest dan worden bijgetankt bij de garage of bijvoorbeeld op lijn ‘G’ bij het tankstation op de Sportlaan bij de Houtrustbrug.

De Chaussons kwamen nu op de “korte” lijn ‘N’ (Vreeswijkstraat-Grote Markt), op spitsuurdiensten en later op lijn ’Y’ (Hollandse Spoor- Ypenburg).

In november 1949 kwam het moment dat HTM de gewaardeerde Franse hulpen kon missen en werden zij verkocht aan diverse touringcarondernemers in het gehele land die nog jaren plezier van deze wagens hebben gehad. Voordat deze ondernemingen de ex-HTM-Chaussons in dienst stelden werden zij grondig verbouwd en van een toerwageninterieur voorzien.

Hoewel deze serie uiteindelijk toch niet zo’n grote rol in het HTM-gebeuren heeft gespeeld waren zij zo vlak na de oorlog toch van onschatbare waarde.

Het Haags Bus Museum was dan ook zeer verheugd dat zij in 1980 in Frankrijk een dergelijke bus konden aankopen, een wagen die ooit als HTM-48 de Haagse straten zo nu en dan weer zal mogen sieren.

Deze bus werd toentertijd in Bourges in Frankrijk aangekocht en werd ruim dertig jaar later op een dieplader van de firma Gordijn naar Nederland gehaald.

Het heeft veel energie en vakmanschap gekost om deze bus weer in oude luister bij te zetten en heden ten dage horen we bij de regelmaat van de klok deze bus weer, met zijn typische rokende dieselmotor, weer door ons Haagje rijden.

B. Boomsma, Nick Roestenburg, Peter Nijbakker en Bart Rijnhouthttp://www.openbaarvervoerinboskoop.nl/delaatstebusopdolledinsdag/HTM27-04.htm

 Chausson AP48 Brebach 1a 1957

Schon 1948 wird der 2.000ste Bus ausgeliefert. Chausson Produktiepalette

1948 Chausson bus in a difficult situation

Im Jahr 1907 gründeten die Brüder Gaston und Jules Chausson in France

CHAUSSON APH52 (1952)

Chausson 1a Saarpost Bus 1958

Chausson

Chausson 48 b.j. 1946

Chausson 44 Hotschkiss 1946

Chausson AGB  APH52 Tekening

 Chausson

Chausson 1947

CHAUSSON 233

CHAUSSON-Saviem

Hazeleger, Saviem CHAUSSON BF-XL-08

CHAUSSON HTM 44

Chausson-aph-47-11

Chausson APH 2.50 de 1952

Chausson-vbc-01 Trolleybus

 Chausson APVU

Chausson-aph-52-06

Chausson AP52 f

Chausson K-17653  [1946]  NB-34-13 Guy [1947]

Chausson-aph-52-09

CHAUSSON EZABO ex HTM 50

 Chausson-apu-03 Chili

Chausson

CHAUSSON LAB 18 of 19

Chausson APH 2.52 n°106 et 108 de 1953

 Chausson APVU4 + Diesel moteur SOMUA

Chausson APH 2.52 n°287 de 1962

Chausson Bus WBX-Madagascar © John Veerkamp

 Chausson AH – Hotchkiss HTM 41 en 121 1946 Eiberplein

Chausson-aph-522-06

Chausson APH 2-50 (grün), Jahrgang 1951

Chausson aph2-50-1949

 Chausson 1946 Balk B-29020 NL

Chausson 1946 Balk B-29020 NL

HZ 27 CHAUSSON B 009

CHAUSSON EMA 79

Chausson wizual

Chausson-aph-52-10

 CTF cover1949

CHAUSSON RCT 4 NL

Chausson APH 2.52 n°189 de 1956

Chausson APVU

Chausson APH 2-522

CHAUSSON APH 522 (1961)

CHAUSSON APH52 (1952)

CHAUSSON APH 48 (1949)

CHAUSSON-Saviem boekje

Chausson DenHaag HOVM HBM 1948

Chausson-vbc-02 Trolleybus

Chausson-apvu-3-10

Bussen Chausson

Chausson Hispano Suiza 1959 Spanje

Chausson-aph-08

Chausson-aph-2-50-07

 Chausson Nederland

Chausson sept 1984 ub8 ©Ph. Willaert

Chausson 1949 APH 49

Chausson AMZ-de Muynck 32

CHAUSSON APU53 Sculptuur

Chausson buses 1959

CHAUSSON DE LA TEO DEVANT LA MAIRIE

Chausson Excursion Toulouse

Chausson nr 22 GEBRU

Chausson Poland

CHAUSSON Ringelberg 6

chausson et 215d Etoile gd

chausson18  gare junlister bus 1955 luxembourg-echternach

Chausson-bus Wernhout-Breda ca 1948

GTW 47 Chausson

Fini-einde

Filed Under: BERLIET, CHAUSSON, Chenard & Walcker, Citroën, FRANCE, Hispano Suiza,Hotchkiss, ISOBLOC, Mercedes Benz, OLD BUSES, Panhard, Peugeot, RENAULT, SAVIEM,SOMUA, Unic, Willéme