1949 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Cabriolet

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4,482cc OHV Inline 6-Cylinder Engine
3 Zenith Stromberg Carburetors
190bhp at 4,200rpm
4-Speed Pre-Selector Transmission
Front Independent Suspension – Live Rear Axle
4-Wheel Drum Brakes

*One of only 3 short chassis Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Cabriolets to survive
*Exquisitely detailed and refined coachbuilt design by Carlo Delaisse
*Formerly owned by noted collectors Anthony Bamford, Lindley Locke and André Surmain
*Possibly the last significant Talbot-Lago to remain in largely unrestored condition
*An unrepeatable opportunity as a basis for a concours restoration

TALBOT-LAGO GRAND SPORT 1948-1952
by Author Peter Larsen

When the chassis design for the Grand Sport was laid down in the late war years, it was Anthony Lago's intention to produce a very exclusive road-going sports chassis for the carriage trade. A chassis, which in its conception, feel, and driveability, was as close as technically possible to Lago's Grand Prix cars. In that sense, it was not a new design: the layout and mechanical details from the pre-war GP cars were retained. This means that the Grand Sport was a true red-blooded sports car rather than a grand routiére like a Delahaye or a Delage. The target group was a wealthy and very sporting clientele which on the one hand wanted a very fast daily driver and on the other would not be averse to entering various racing and rally events as a privateer.

In retrospect, it is clear that even if the target group may have been there, the market certainly was not. But market research, customer clinics, and scientifically targeted product development would have been totally alien concepts to a man like Anthony Lago. His thinking was much simpler: "I have developed, proved, and honed my chassis and engines in grueling competition since before the war. I am now offering you a perfected road car chassis which has much of the power, road holding, and strength of my Grand Prix racing machines. Surely you must covet that and buy it!" Lago was flying by the seat of his pants and this time his intuition failed him. For that we should all be thankful. Had he been "smarter" and taken a cooler and more distanced look at the new and austere world surrounding him in 1946, the T26 Grand Sport would never have been created.

The bare chassis made its debut at the Paris Salon in October 1947 and the first bodied cars were shown at the Salon in 1948. As it turned out, production was to be extremely limited. In four years, from 1948 to 1952, a total of 32 documented chassis were produced by Talbot. 29 on the original short 2.65-meter wheelbase and three towards the end on a stretched 2.80-meter wheelbase. They were bodied by the cream of French coachbuilding. Saoutchik was the most prolific, but Grand Sports were also bodied by Chapron, Franay, Figoni, Dubos, Antem, and others. Exported chassis were bodied by Pennock, Van den Plas, Graber, and Stabilimenti Farina.

Some Grand Sports turned out to be quite competitive and were rallied and raced enthusiastically by their owners—and still are in historic racing today. Others were laden down considerably with voluptuous bodies. These extravagant creations blunted performance somewhat, but more than compensated for that with their wanton beauty. These latter Grand Sports were entered avidly by owners and carrossiers in many of the postwar concours d'elegance in France and abroad, often winning grand prizes for their refinement and sophistication. Today, they still do when they are shown. They look like nothing else. They are unique. They draw crowds. And deservedly so.

Criticism has been levelled over the years at the extreme shortness of wheelbase of the original Grand Sport chassis, coupled with the relative height of the powerplant, the large 18-inch wheels, and the massive 120-liter gas tank. The argument is that with only 2.65 meters, it complicated the work of the carrossier unnecessarily. While it is true that stretching to 2.80 meters for the last cars was probably a final concession (too little too late) to the coachbuilders, in hindsight, this criticism misses the point.

Development

In the late 1930s, Talbot-Lago built less than 25 of the super-exclusive T150 C-SS chassis, justly famous for the iconic Teardrop Coupé body by Figoni et Falaschi that it was usually fitted with. It was a race car for the road: to create it, Lago simply took his existing T150 C GP race car chassis with transverse leaf front suspension, widened it to accommodate two passengers, and then stretched the wheelbase 15 centimeters from 2.50 meters to 2.65 meters. He then slotted a de-tuned high-compression three-carburetor version of his 4-liter single-cam racing engine between the chassis rails. Voila! One of the greatest pre-war sports car chassis was born. The T150 C-SS: it was nimble, fast, and truly exciting to drive.

The Grand Sport is the direct post-war descendant of the fabulous T150 C-SS. It features an identical chassis, but importantly, it has a lot more power. Anthony Lago and his chief engineer Carlo Marchetti had not been idle during the war. The displacement of the pre-war six was increased to 4.5-liters and it received twin-camshafts high in the block as well as hemispherical combustion chambers. It was designated the T26 for its 26 CV fiscal horsepower rating. In Grand Sport specification with three large Zenith carburetors and an aluminum cylinder head, this splendid engine put out an imposing 190 hp. And it looked the part too, with the prominent art deco TALBOT-LAGO script on its gorgeous valve covers.

The Wilson pre-selector gearbox was left unchanged, but offered extremely fast shifting compared to conventional gearboxes at the time. And the T26 Grand Sport chassis was light. Sans body, the complete chassis weighed in at 850 kilos compared to 1,280 kilos for the standard Lago Record passenger car chassis, a savings of more than 400 kilos! This was enough to make the Grand Sport the fastest production chassis in the world—at least for a short while. To sum up, the Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport truly was that rare beast: a real sports-racing car with authentic Grand Prix underpinnings.

Impact

It is no mystery why so few Grand Sports were made. Inflation was rampant in postwar France, the population was impoverished, and the very high cost of Talbot's artisanal manufacturing methods as well as the crippling tax levied on engines larger than 15 CV made the Grand Sport an expensive proposition indeed. The 1947 T26 Grand Sport was offered as chassis-only and carried a massive price tag of 1,851,000 French francs. In comparison, a complete Citroën Traction Avant sedan could be had for a mere 215,800 francs. And even such a mass-produced car was out of reach for nearly everyone. By 1948, the Grand Sport chassis had gone up to an eye-watering 2,126,000 francs.

But the Grand Sport was so much more than its crippling price. It was a grand gesture, the final flowering in France of the great tradition of the truly custom and profoundly bespoke motorcar. This was a chassis which was one of the last expressions anywhere in the world of grand luxury in the true sense of that word. Not just grand luxury understood as the amount of leather, wood capping, thick carpets, drinks cabinets, or other accoutrements provided to gratify the owner. The sybaritic nature of the Grand Sport lay in its outrageous exclusivity. It was something for the very, very few, and not just because of its price, which was stratospheric, or its limited practicality, which was irrelevant.

In the modern world, gadgets and gizmos are often confused with luxury. Onboard computers are constantly controlling, optimizing, and remembering everything the car has ever done. Electronic nannies will save all but the most idiotic of drivers from sticky situations in traffic. This is not luxury. The allure of the T26 Grand Sport was its inherent good taste and rare appeal, which was not readily understood by the majority. Here was a car that was chic, ritzy, aristocratic, and sharp as a knife all at once. The Grand Sport chassis was a thing of grand luxury because it appealed to a genuinely sophisticated clientele, who could appreciate its pedigree and aesthetics. Grand luxury because of the truly unique hand-crafted bodies this chassis demanded. Grand luxury because of the elite gatherings on the racing and concours circuits to which this car gave admission, no questions asked.

The Talbot-Lago Grand Sport was the embodiment of French haute couture in metal, Anthony Lago's swan song, his enduring legacy. It truly was The Car From Paris, and just as truly, it was the last of its kind.

THE CAR OFFERED

In 2023 we celebrate the centenary of the 24 hours of Le Mans, or the Grand Prix d'Endurance an event which is at the core of all motor sport and arguably the greatest statement of what the late Dr. Fred Simeone phrased 'The Spirit of Competition'.

In the immediate post war era one French marque dominated the grids of races around Europe, and that was Talbot-Lago. They were present with successive campaigns at Le Mans in 1950 through to 1955, their resilience and presence against up and coming Italian brands being a balance of engineering design, and the stamina of both the cars and their drivers. Talbot-Lago won the 1950 edition, and perhaps even more noteworthy, it was one of very few brands in the history of the race to come close to completing the race single-handedly, that being Pierre Levegh's 1954 run, when he drove for 22 hours and 50 minutes, a missed gearchange causing the win to elude him and the marque.

With few modifications, the chassis and mechanicals of those remarkable Talbot-Lagos were nearly identical to the model that you see here before you, the Type 26 Grand Sport and their dominance at Le Mans reflected roughly two decades of evolution.

As one can see on these pages, the T26GS chassis is all business, rather like other sporting icons such as a Mercedes SSK, American Underslung or Simplex the cars are all engine, brakes and little else to hamper outright performance. Of the 29 T26 Grand Sport chassis on the short 265 cm wheelbase to leave the Talbot-Lago works, a mere 5 were delivered with open coachwork. While that may have reflected the more austere post war demands of clients, for the most part it sadly deprives collectors today of the chance to experience an open version.

Among its brethren, this car, 110117 is something of an anomaly being far more shapely than some of the oft times overly wide and slab sided post war designs. The lucky patron who ordered 110117 new was one Paul Gerbe, who is understood to have been based in Paris. M. Gerbe's choice of coachwork was outside of the more regular houses, electing Dubos Frères to cloth his sporting Talbot.

The name Dubos is almost certainly best known for the remarkable Bugatti Atlantic-esque coupe that they completed on a Type 51 Bugatti before the war and today resides in a prominent Southern California Collection, a cleverly scaled and sculpted coupe that hides an all-out performance racing car, much like the Talbot. After the war, Louis Dubos' sons, Leo, Jean and Pierre established themselves in the Parisian suburb of Puteaux, where pioneering manufacturer De Dion Bouton hailed from and began to build coachwork in 1945. Their venture would continue for 5 years before going the way of many of the post-war carrossiers. Dubos were certainly favored by Talbot-Lago, as was Carlo Delaisse who is understood to have penned the lines for 110117.

Owing to the car's intrinsic originality and never having been restored in its entirety, we can witness the work of Delaisse and Dubos as it was created without the intervention and sometimes reinterpretation of restorers. One deviation from the drawing board was to make the grille part of the bodywork, as on Lago Speciales and Teardrop cars.

At first glance the design may appear simple, in reality it is anything but. As shown from above on these pages, its lines also follow those of the popularized tapering of the teardrop bodies, and in profile the body dips beautifully ahead of the rear wheels. The doors have curvature both laterally and longitudinally. Of special interest is the way in which the body is constructed. Before the war, fenders were invariably separate pieces, joined with welting for flexibility. Not so here, the body is welded singularly without delineation, a remarkable feat in itself, not least since it still has all the features that one might expect could be achieved in separate pieces. Particularly notable is the way in which the rear of the front fenders tapers pointedly and then dives forward before joining the body.


Recently discovered registration records, sourced from Nicolas Maier, confirm that Mr. Gerbe kept his Talbot through to 1957, only then selling to Pierre du Chabanet. On June 21, 1958 the car passed to Henri Lievremont who retained it for a further 3 years. On November 30, 1961 it was sold to Robert Dumoulin.


The Grand Sport was discovered shortly after this by an American. He was to sell the Talbot-Lago to André Surmain the famous restaurateur, a man who was once described like this by a friend in print - 'André Surmain loves his life. Antique motor cars, Majorca, sailing, his family...his name, his triumphs, adventure'. It may perhaps have been prefaced by 'in that order' since Surmain certainly appreciated cars and was a known owner of a variety of French built machines.

He would have owned the Dubos Convertible in the New York chapter of his career, when he was building up the famed Lutèce restaurant on 50th Street in Manhattan, with chef André Solnier. In 1973 he handed the reins over to Solnier before retreating back to his home country and began his next success, Le Relais à Mougins in the South of France. Lutèce was by no means a slam dunk in terms of success, and it took them a dozen years to establish the reputation which it would carry to the 2000s.

As any truly passionate car collector might, despite fortunes waxing and waning on occasions, it seems that he held onto the Talbot-Lago over and above other financial tokens and repatriated it when he arrived back in Europe in the 1970s. Surmain then placed the car on display for some time at the Musee de la Carrosserie Francaise, on the island of Puerto de Andratx off Mallorca.

Eventually, Surmain sold the car to up and coming collector Anthony Bamford, the British Industrialist and owner of JCB in the UK, someone who to this day has always owned the finest cars, in an ever-evolving collection. In fact, ultimately his acquisition of the later Tom Perkins/Ralph Lauren Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic led to him parting with 110117 which migrated back to the USA becoming the property of Jackson Brooks of Colorado.

Brooks completed a light refurbishment of the Dubos, repainting it in a violet hue from the Mercedes color palate and re-chroming its bumpers and wheels. He kept the car for a little while longer before it became part of a switch deal and landed in the very safe long-term custody of Lindley Locke in 1976.

The Locke name is synonymous with the brand of Talbot-Lago, his stable accruing spectacular examples of this marque as some might collect baseball cards. It would rest alongside the most valuable Talbot-Lago of all, the Maharajah of Kapurthala's T150 CSS by Figoni, one of two with enclosed front fenders, as well as other Grand Sports by Figoni and Antem. In Locke's ownership the Talbot would remain uncompromised. Its condition was significantly better than the other Talbots in his stable, and he showed in it local California concours in the 1970s.

After Lindley's passing, his wife Betty was the careful custodian of the cars with sound guidance and advice from their friend Mike Regalia. Over the course of the last few years the cars have quietly been dispersed with the Dubos convertible arriving at that point into the present ownership. In these hands the car was sensitively worked through, including repainting to lightly refurbish and revive it without tearing it down for restoration. The result is an incredibly rewarding balance of usability and originality, even the original carpets were carefully cleaned of glues used to place the next layer of carpet over them so that they might be preserved. The seats were recovered and blend in well with the door panels and dash which remain patinated and are likely the originals.

Under the skin, another intriguing aspect of the car is that the fender insides are painted red, a detail which knowledgeable authorities including Peter Larsen find inexplicable but may simply have been a way of showing dirt or damage more easily for repair – perhaps we will never know.

In this carefully reviewed form, the car was finally seen at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, where the Grand Sports lined the seafront as a tribute class. Chassis 110117 was volunteered for display and not judging but even so still crossed the ramp.

An oft overlooked marque and model, the Grand Sport represents the zenith of its maker and its sale here offers a world of possibilities, it could easily be used and enjoyed as it is, not least to experience this model's amazing driving characteristics and power for long distance tours. Alternatively, this beautiful and stylistically important sports car offers its next owner the opportunity should they wish to fully restore and show the car, where it would most certainly perform extremely well.

Either way, in purchasing the Dubos Talbot-Lago Grand Sport they add their name to a true list of connoisseurs of performance and design from André Surmain to Lindley Locke.