The Delage D8 was one of the brand’s most prestigious models. Powered by a 4061 cc OHC inline eight-cylinder engine, this model benefited from Delage’s technological expertise in motor racing (one of its cars set the world land speed record in 1924).
The Delage D8 was undoubtedly the company’s most prestigious model, but it had a problem: being introduced in 1929the year of the Wall Street stock market crash. That was a bad sign for any company, especially one that was one of France’s most respected luxury car makers in the 1920s and 1930s, the company’s golden age.
Delage had modest beginnings, but motor racing played a key role in its development and in enhancing its reputation. Indeed, it competed with its own cars from 1906, just one year after its foundation. It was after the First World War that the company entered the competitive field of luxury cars with increasingly technologically advanced engines.
In 1922, it began to launch inline six-cylinder models, culminating in the enormous and highly sophisticated Delage GL, with a 5,344 cc engine of that configuration, which was the basis for the car that broke the world speed record in 1924, driven by René Thomas. However, that vehicle joined two such blocks to obtain a 10,688 cc DOHC V12… to reach 230.52 km/h in Arpajon (south of Paris).
With this background, in 1929 the Delage D8 would arrive, with a 4,061 cc inline eight-cylinder OHC engine that delivered 102 hp (76 kW) at 3,500 rpm for the D8 Normal and 120 hp (89 kW) in the shortened sports version D8 SThe range would be completed a year later from below with the D6 as a “popular” model, leaving the D8 as its flagship.
The Delage D8, as we said at the beginning, with the beginning of the Great Depression. Despite this bad economic period worldwide, sales of the D8 were relatively good, it was a car that competed with the best car manufacturers, such as Bugatti and Avions Voisin. The car had drum brakes on all four wheels, a four-speed manual gearbox with synchronizer on the two upper gears and a conventional suspension for its time (beam axles at the front and leaf springs and friction dampers on the rear axle).
The D8 was offered in three chassis lengths. Each of these provided a car with characteristics. The “S” (from Surbaisse, meaning lowered) was 3,300 mm. The N (we can define it as Normal), 3,600 mm and “L” (Largo) was going to 3,600 mm). The first of them, the D8 S It could also be a Sport model, as it had a clear sporting orientation. It had shorter valve springs to mitigate breakage when driving at high revs without mercy and a system that sent warm engine oil to warm the intake system and prevent ice formation.
What Delage did not do was the bodywork for its cars. As was usual at the time, it provided a rolling chassis that was sent to the coachbuilder chosen by the client to create the custom bodywork on. This unit you see in the images was the work of Carrosserie PourtoutWith chassis number 36009, this Delage D8 S was originally acquired by the Parisian dealer H. de Corvaia (not far from the Arc de Triomphe in the French capital), and delivered to Carrosserie Pourtout to have its custom body fitted.
The coachbuilders delivered their work in March 1932. It perfectly combines the aggressiveness of a sports car with the elegance of the brand. The windshield, which barely rises above the hood, gives it an image reminiscent of the cars of the Chicago gangsters and also of the hot rods Americans. Ideal for its first owner, a French actor who registered it with the number 6195 RF6.
He only had it for a short time, as he sold it in 1936 to a young engineer… who managed to hide it during the Second World War and keep it in good condition. After several changes of ownership, the car was completely restored in 1980, work that lasted a decade. It was exhibited and sold again in 1995.
That owner rarely brought it out… but in 2024 he decided it was time to get rid of it. It happened at the Monterey auction on August 16. He will surely regret having given up the car… but seeing the money in his bank account $3,305,000 that they paid for him (around three million euros, rounding off), surely helps him to wipe away his sorrows.
