In 1937 the French government sponsored a competition to persuade French car builders to produce a Grand Prix racer that could compete against the then-dominant Mercedes and Auto Union single seaters which had been funded by the Nazi government. A million franc prize was offered for anyone who could beat the record for 200 kilometers at the Monthlery course at a minimum average speed of 146 kph (about 91 mph). Delahaye designed a new power plant for this contest, a triple-cam 4.5 liter V12 with magnesium engine block and 24 spark plugs, to power the Type 145 race car. In August of 1937 driver René Dreyfus risked his life to break the record, wearing the tires down to the fabric, and then risked it again after a tire change, defending his position against a late-arriving Bugatti entry driven by Jean-Pierre Wimille. But the Bugatti broke, and the million francs went to Delahaye. An American expatriate couple, Laury Schell and Lucy O'Reilly Schell, financed the construction of four of these new racers for a semi-official Delahaye factory team (called Écurie Bleue) to beat the German cars. Success was not widely predicted for Écurie Bleue. The Mercedes and Auto Union racers had twice as much power as the 240 hp Delahaye, and the Nazi government offered much greater financial support for their racers. On April 10, 1938, Dreyfus and his Delahaye team were ready as promised for the season-opening Grand Prix of Pau, with 100 laps to be run through the streets of a French village. While Auto Union was not ready, Dreyfus and his teammates faced the full force of Mercedes-Benz, and less organized opposition from Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Bugatti and Talbot. And whatever their engineering merits, the Delahayes didn't look like world-beaters; their body designs evoked an afterthought left to the engineers. Looking down the track at the Mercedes Silver Arrows, the blue Delahayes probably seemed like big sheepdogs facing a pack of sleek, hungry wolves. Once the starter's flag dropped, however, something happened that perhaps only Delahaye's engineers could have predicted. The lightly stressed, seemingly underpowered Delahayes hurtling over the winding, twisty course kept nipping at the heels of the 480 hp Benzes, and most significantly, over the entire 172 miles they never needed to stop for fuel. The Mercedes team needed to stop, and also suffered from fouled plugs. Their thirsty engines proved fatal to the German team's race plan, and the cool, methodical Dreyfus finished nearly two minutes ahead of the nearest Mercedes. Proving this was not a fluke, Gianfranco Comotti brought his Delahaye into 3rd place, just behind Rudolf Caracciola and Hermann Lang in Mercedes. The French crowd went wild. The Nazi-supported effort had been derailed by the combined efforts of a relatively obscure truck manufacturer, a couple of American amateur race fans, and above all (and most irritating to Hitler) a talented and heroic French driver of Jewish parentage, who went on to win the Grand Prix at Cork, Ireland in the 145. In 1940, the French team, hearing that Hitler had demanded the destruction of the offending cars, dismantled and hid them, concealing one under the stands at the Monthlery track. All four Type 145s survived, along with two luxurious Figoni-bodied Type 165s with a detuned, 12-plug version of the same V12 engine…one of these was stranded as a static display at the New York World's Fair after the invasion, and was not given its original engine (strangely found in Germany) until long after the war. Only one racer retains the original body design; two cars were re-bodied by Chapron as coupes of somewhat sinister elegance after the war, and a third car was enhanced in 1947 by a spectacular Franay cabriolet body. The individual who had ordered this car never took delivery of it, as he was jailed for collaborating with the Nazis. Both the 145 racer and the Franay roadster are now in the U.S., where they appeared in Monterey, California during this past August's historic races and Pebble Beach Concours. Intriguingly, it is not absolutely certain that the lone car with the GP body is the Million-Franc Delahaye, though the engine number matches. Some Delahaye experts, including the owner of the Franay cabrio, claim that when the 145s were retrieved from hiding and reassembled after the war, chassis parts from the Million-Franc car wound up hiding under the chrome-edged Deco curves of the Franay. No matter; the GP-bodied car won an award reserved for historic racers that weekend, and the silver-blue Franay was a finalist for Best of Show at Pebble Beach. It won its class and an award for most elegant convertible, but lost top honors to an imposing but somewhat trucklike '31 Isotta-Fraschini, a decision proving that concours judges, like Supreme Court justices, can be just plain wrong. As for René Dreyfus, there's no question about what happened to him: he joined the French Army in 1940, was sent by the French government to the U.S. to race at the Indy 500 in spring of 1940 (France was already at war with Germany, and invasion was weeks away), joined the American Army in 1942 and served as an interrogator in Italy, and founded Le Chanteclair (a great place for car talk over fine food) in New York City after the war. He died at age 88 in 1993.
Errata: The original version of this post erroneously indicated that another Delahaye driven by Comotti finished in 2nd place. The correct order of finish was Delahayes in 1st and 3rd place, with Mercedes-Benz in 2nd. I apologize for the error.
Photo Credits:
Top & 3rd from top: motortrend.com
2nd & 4th from top (Dreyfus in the 145): forix.com
5th & 6th (Type 145 racer and V12 engine): the author
7th (145 Chapron coupe): wikipedia.fr
8th from top (145 coupes): carbase.com
9th & bottom (Type 165 Figoni V12 cabriolet): the author
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