Marcel Pourtout set up his coachbuilding firm in 1925 in the Parisian suburb of Bougival. Though in French "pour tout" means "for all", the dozen artisans who initially worked in Pourtout's shops turned out work that was not quite for everybody. If you could afford a car like the early Thirties Delage* D8S posing proudly before the Arc de Triomphe, however, Carrosserie Poutout was for you...
In 1933, Pourtout hired dentist Georges Paulin as the firm's chief designer, and streamlined forms began to figure in the company's designs. Under Paulin's direction, Poutout released the Peugeot 601C Eclipse shown below, perhaps the first practical retractable hardtop. Produced in limited numbers, the car was a success, and Pourtout built retractables on other Peugeot chassis.
So was Paulin's design for the Peugeot Darl'mat*, made in 106 examples including coupe (above), roadster (below) and cabriolet forms from 1936 and 1939. Roadster versions competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Note the decorative portholes and the way the bright metal trim separates the colors on the coupe, and underlines the rakish cut-down doors on the roadster...
From 1939 to '39, Pourtout produced 3 examples of Paulin's stunning, aerodynamic design for the Talbot Lago T150C SS coupe. The short production run makes this car about four times as rare as the better-known Figoni & Falaschi teardrop coupes on the same chassis. Headlights concealed behind grilles were also a feature of some Figoni teardrop coupes...
Paulin's spare, undecorated forms suit the car's high-performance mission. Note the way the teardrop forms of the fenders are echoed in the curve of the roof, and the way the front fenders peak just above the car's hood line...
The tapered forms of the Talbot's tail were echoed in the Embiricos Bentley coupe below, also a design from 1938 commissioned by amateur racer Andre Embiricos. The Bentley remained a one-off example, competed post-war at Le Mans on 3 occasions, and survives today.
At least one Delage D8-120 was bodied by Pourtout as a near-duplicate of the Embiricos Bentley, with only the Delage radiator to distinguish it. Meanwhile, at the 1937 Paris Auto Salon, Pourtout had exhibited Georges Paulin's most radical design, an Aero Coupe on the D8-120S chassis. The fenders followed the same teardrop shape as on the Bentley, but the curved, two-piece windshield was an advance over the two flat panes on the Embiricos car, and the thin A-pillars barely interrupted the sweep of the windshield into the side glazing, curving toward the rear fenders in a sweep unbroken by a B-pillar...
While the front and side glazing was a preview of the "hardtop convertibles" which appeared after the war that was still on the horizon, the forms at the rear were a sleeker refinement of Paulin's design for the Embiricos Bentley.
As war clouds darkened Europe, Marcel Pourtout shifted production to making ambulances on Chevrolet chassis. After the German invasion, Georges Paulin worked for the French Resistance as well as British intelligence. The Nazis executed Paulin in 1942, and wrecked Pourtout's factory before fleeing Paris in 1944. After the war, Pourtout's firm continued to make bodies like the 1946 Delahaye* 135 coupe below, but shifted to non-automotive industrial design after exhibiting their last car at the 1952 Paris Salon. The firm continued offering industrial and advertising design services until 1994, and today concentrates on repair of bodywork.
*Footnotes: Delage is featured in "A Car for the Ages" in the blog archive for 5/20/18. Delahaye history is surveyed in "Golden Days of Delahayes" from 6/30/18 and in "Dreyfus and the Million-Franc Delahaye vs. the Third Reich" from 11/22/15, while Delahaye roadsters bodied by Figoni & Falaschi are featured in "Chasing the Streamline" from 5/30/17. For some notes on the Peugeot Darl'mat and other streamlined Thirties designs including another Figoni-bodied Delahaye, please see "Rolling Sculpture" from 12/31/16.
Photo Credits:
Top & 2nd from top: wikimedia
3rd: George Havelka
4th: wikimedia
5th & 6th: Linda LaFond
7th & 9th: George Havelka
8th: the author
10th: pinterest.com
11th: IGCD.net
10th: pinterest.com
11th: IGCD.net
12th: wikimedia
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