Émile Delahaye

He studied engineering at Arts et Métiers Paris Technical trade school in Angers, the same educational institution later attended by Louis Delâge, another French automobile pioneer.

In 1879 Delahaye assumed control of the Brethon Foundry and Machine-works, a business manufacturing brick kilns and related equipment for the ceramics trade.

Aside from the myriad motorized bicycles and tricycles, Delahaye's was one of only two automobiles entered.

Faced with health problems, and realizing the need for additional invested capital, better machine tools, and larger assembly space, Delahaye partnered with two Paris industrialists, brothers-in-law Leon Desmarais and Georges Morane.

By 1898 the newly incorporated owners relocated their automobile production from Tours to the industrial building in the Gobelin district of Paris that Desmarais and Morane inherited.