Saoutchik

The company was one of the best-known coachbuilders in France in the 1920s and 1930s and, together with Figoni et Falaschi and Franay, is considered one of the most important representatives of the "Baroque" style in French coachwork in the 1930s and 1940s.

[8] These are large and complex four-door cars with a fully opening top and complete weather protection through retractable side windows; This is where they differ from a torpedo or phaeton.

These structures, known in the USA as convertible sedans, therefore present the body builders with special requirements in terms of stability, rigidity and operability of the top.

In search of "visual magic", Saoutchik began to emphasize the main lines of his designs with nickel-plated, later chrome-plated and occasionally wooden appliqués.

Another preserved design from this era is a Rolls-Royce Phantom II (68 GN), which Saoutchik very modestly dressed up as a Cabriolet de Ville (a synonym for transformable) in 1930.

The vehicle is painted black and has subtle Art Deco decorations; Inside, brocade paneling on the rear doors and elaborate ornaments and appliqués.

In the early 1930s he attracted attention with such designs, which, however, appeared somewhat more playful than the conceptually similar, formally strict structures of contemporary Voisin, which were drawn by the architect Le Corbusier in the Bauhaus tradition.

The chosen structure was a three-position convertible in which the top could be opened fully or partially (only over the front seats), and there was also an integrated trunk.

Bucciali was, along with Tracta, one of the pioneers of this concept in the 1920s, but the TAV8-32 (also called TAV12 because of the V12 valve engine from Voisin with 4886 cm³ displacement that was originally ordered by the customer) was the largest front-wheel drive car built to date, and outperformed the (series-built) American Cord L-29 and Ruxton, the two other most popular front wheel drive automobiles at the time.

On the side, there were ornaments in the shape of a flying stork along the entire length of the hood, almost an antithesis to the strict formalism of the rest of the structure.

[13][14][15] For a few years, this competition shaped car fashion and the development of French individual body construction, the "Americanization" of which Jacques Saoutchik complained about in 1935.

During this time, both Saoutchik and Figoni & Falaschi won many awards at the Concours d'Elegance for their creations and remained in business despite the economic crisis.

Saoutchik built it on the chassis of the eight-cylinder Renault Suprastella model for the future general and war hero Marie-Pierre Kœnig (1898–1970).

Saoutchik's unique piece on an early 3½ liter chassis (#39107) leaves the hood, radiator grille and headlights with their characteristic struts untouched.

It belonged to the sister of King Faruq of Egypt and was actually intended to be bodied by the coachbuilder Binder, where it arrived immediately before the outbreak of war.

The rivalry with Figoni & Falaschi continued briefly after the war, now joined by designs from Franay, Gurney-Nutting, Freestone and Webb and a newcomer, Facel-Métallon.

In Saoutchik's home market of France, the de Gaulle government also introduced a very high luxury tax, which not only sealed the fate of many car brands, but also forced coachbuilders to give up.

They were combined with more appliqués than ever: wide chrome strips run across the top of the fenders, and the wattle above the doors is a stylistic device already used in carriage construction.

After Antonio Lago separated the factory in Suresnes from the bankruptcy estate of the British Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Group (STD) in 1932, a realignment took place with a tighter product range, sportier models and a racing program that, for cost reasons, consisted of near-production vehicles.

Talbot-Lago were robust and also fast with their initially 2.7 to 3 liter six-cylinder engines with OHV valve control and hemispherical combustion chambers.

The brand's chassis were soon popular with Saoutchik's competitors Figoni & Falaschi and Chapron, the latter producing very stylish and reserved convertibles and coupés and Figoni & Falaschi, on the one hand, maintaining their "baroque style" and on the other hand with the famous Goutte d'eau ("drops of water") Coupés found a completely new design language.

After the discontinuation of Bugatti, Delage and Delahaye, Talbot-Lago was for a short time the last French provider of large-volume sports cars in the Bentley price range.

In 1953, a pillarless coupé, which in a less radical form would probably have been called a hardtop or faux-cabriolet, showed the path envisioned by Paul Saoutchik, who had taken over the company from his father the previous year.

Objectively speaking, there were cheaper, modern designs that were significantly more powerful than these Grandes Routières, which had actually long since reached the end of their development cycle.In 1938, automobile production by Hispano-Suiza in France was discontinued, while it was continued in Spain.

Initially, car production was discontinued, and the company concentrated solely on commercial vehicles, which were sold under the brand name Pegaso.