Solved - MJW #454 - Delage II 1922 with a 1933 Jensen body

[woodinsight]

Make and year of the base car plus who the coachbuilder was (and year)

[woodinsight]

Expertise required

[woodinsight]

Professional help now required

[João]

Circa 1931 Wolseley Hornet by Martin Walter?

[woodinsight]

Circa 1931 Wolseley Hornet by Martin Walter?

Not that.....

[João]

Circa 1934 Lagonda Rapier Saloon by Maltby?

[woodinsight]

Circa 1934 Lagonda Rapier Saloon by Maltby?

Not that either I'm afraid.
The chassis is much older than the coachwork. (1934 is close for the body)

[woodinsight]

An extra clue - the chassis is not British

[João]

An extra clue - the chassis is not British

Fiat?

[woodinsight]

Not Fiat (and not Italian)

[João]

An Amilcar?

[woodinsight]

Not Amilcar but the chassis is French

[João]

So it's a British Salmson?

[woodinsight]

So it's a British Salmson?

No - chassis is French, coachwork is British.
A hint - chassis dates from 1922 and the body from 1933

[Allan L]

Hard to think of a 1922 French car of modest size with six cylinders that would be worth rebodying 11 years later. Oméga and Rolland Pillain would be possible but this looks smaller than they would be.

[woodinsight]

Hard to think of a 1922 French car of modest size with six cylinders that would be worth rebodying 11 years later. Oméga and Rolland Pillain would be possible but this looks smaller than they would be.

It is actually a well-known high-quality French chassis with a lesser-known British body.

[João]

It's a Delage?

[woodinsight]

It's a Delage?

Yes it is!
Now all that is needed is the coachbuilder...

[João]

Harrington?

[woodinsight]

Not Harrington.
The letter this coachbuilder begins with is quite close to 'H' 

[João]

Jensen?

[woodinsight]

Jensen?

Bingo!
It is a Delage II of 1922 fitted with a Jensen body from 1933.

[Allan L]

Interesting description, "a Delage II" .
I normally think of Delage II as "La Torpille", being the second of two Delage hillclimb cars of 1922/3 and rebuilt and campaigned by Nigel Arnold-Forster in the 1960s. It looked like the photo below, which seems a bigger car than the puzzle.

[woodinsight]

Interesting description, "a Delage II" .
I normally think of Delage II as "La Torpille", being the second of two Delage hillclimb cars of 1922/3 and rebuilt and campaigned by Nigel Arnold-Forster in the 1960s. It looked like the photo below, which seems a bigger car than the puzzle.

I took the description Delage II from the caption in my (normally reliable) source. I haven't found any further information on this car yet.

[grobmotorix]

"Delage II. ...Neil Gardiner of great Auclum fame, bought the car and had the two-seater pointed tail body put on for road use and the car was registered MV 2734. He didn´t race it at Brooklands in 1931 but drove the car three times there in 1932 getting two seconds in the Inter-Club meeting and a fastest lap at 116.09 mph which was certainly very good for a 10-year-old car. After 1932 the car disappeared from Brooklands but was used at smaller events including Shelshley Walsh at 48.2sec. Gardiner then had the Jensen brothers build a neat saloon body; the car also featured massive front mounted oil coolers and carried its dry sump reservoir between the dumb-irons under the touring Delage radiator. It must have been a very fast road cart in its day. It stayed in its form until 1936 when John Lawson bought the car: he removed the handsome body, apart from the bonnet, replacing it with a cut-and-shut two seater version...