Delahaye 175 S: Diana’s deco delight

The Delahaye Type 175 S featured here – chassis 815025 – was ordered new by Sir John Gaul, an extrovert English millionaire who lived in Paris. Throughout 1949, the car collected top honours at premier concours d’élégance events including Paris, Monte-Carlo and San Remo. As was the tradition, the breathtaking blue Delahaye was presented with a beautiful lady dressed in the latest couture fashions.

From Gaul, the Saoutchik sensation came to the UK to Diana Dors and eventually found its way to Denver-based collector Arthur Rippey in the USA. It ended up with William G Parfet in Colorado at some point in the 1970s. Frustrated by the car’s unreliable French mechanicals, Parfet sent it to Bud Cohn’s shop in Los Angeles, where the Delahaye’s ‘six’ and Dubonnet suspension were removed and an Oldsmobile Toronado 7-litre V8 and front-wheel-drive transmission were grafted on. The Delahaye looked unchanged and was entered for Pebble Beach in 1982, but only for exhibition due to its modifications. Cohn sold on the redundant Delahaye parts and the daunting restoration of the 175 S discouraged various owners, including Tom Barrett and Sam Orenstein. Its saviour was Ron Benach, a wealthy Chicago industrialist with a passion for coachbuilt French cars, who acquired the by-then dismantled project in 2003.

Having rebuilt two Bugattis for Benach, and the equally swoopy ex-Shah of Iran Saoutchik-bodied Bugatti Type 57, Rod Jolley’s coachbuilding firm in the New Forest was the natural choice to return the French masterpiece to its former glory. “It was one of the most challenging jobs that we’ve ever done, with more than 2000 hours of work,” Jolley recalls. “I’d only seen photos of the car, so it was a shock when it arrived. Someone had started the restoration and amazingly had sectioned the front wings with a disc-cutter, which left us with a 1/8in gap. The only solution was to weld in inch-wide strips and then cut it back. Thankfully, most of the chromed brass body trim was complete, so this gave a good guide to the profile. We had to re-make the missing rear biplane bumper, but the front was a good reference. Saoutchik used traditional body-building techniques, with an ash frame from the scuttle back. All of the panels were hammered out of steel, which was typical of European work. Only the English used a wheel.”

Saoutchik’s craftsmanship impressed Jolley’s top wood-frame man Jason Rangecroft: “With the wind-up windows and all of those integral hinges, it was a complicated frame with a lot more mortise-and-tenon joints than you’d find in an English body. We had to dismantle the frame, replace some wood, then reassemble it.”

After Jolley’s talented team had completed the bodywork, the car was shipped back to the USA for Fran Roxas to finish the restoration. “I’ll never forget first seeing the car in the early ’80s,” says Roxas. “It was sitting at the back of the Candy Store. This was an old warehouse used by various San Francisco collectors to store cars, and the Delahaye looked forlorn with the front wings removed and an Olds engine. I recall it was painted maroon then.” Fortunately, few modifications had been made to fit the Toronado engine, so rebuilding the driveline with a spare Type 175 straight-six and Cotal gearbox was straightforward. “The chassis and suspension were rebuilt,” Roxas adds, “and it drove fine – with good ride and steering – but it’s a big, heavy car, which really handicaps the performance.”

The interior proved a challenge, but luckily a good selection of historic photos found in France provided the perfect reference for the Chicago-based specialist and the late Raymond Milo was a great help with contacts. “We had to re-make the steering wheel,” explains Roxas. “The steel rod had rusted inside the original’s clear casing, so we started again but with a stainless centre. The rim was cast in one piece from clear resin. Most of the gauges were complete, but the dash had been covered in leather, which was wrong. All of the upholstery was retrimmed in our shop and only when we started work did I realise that the main emblem was a seagull, which linked it with the marine theme to the design.”

Matching the paint proved a quandary, with no colour photographs available from the ’50s, but evidence of the original blue was found inside the boot. As Roxas points out: “The paint had never seen daylight, so it made a perfect sample. We call it aqua blue and for ’49 it was a wild colour. I’m sure that some of the GM designers were later inspired by the Delahaye, but it wasn’t until the Oldsmobile Fiesta in ’53 that US manufacturers started to produce such bold colour schemes. The Saoutchik-bodied Delahaye was way ahead of fashion.”

Having rebuilt some of the finest pre-war cars – including many Pebble Beach class-winning Duesenbergs and Packards – how does Roxas rate the French stunner? “For me it’s one of the all-time great automobiles, and I love the nautical influence in the styling. The chrome trim and the fender lines look just like breaking waves.”

After nearly three years’ work, the Delahaye finally made its post-restoration debut at the 2006 Pebble Beach Concours, where it wowed visitors just as it had done 57 years earlier in the Bois de Boulogne. Appropriately, the event had a Gallic coachbuilders theme, with special displays celebrating Delahaye and Voisin. The Type 175 S still stole the show, though, even when parked with some of the most outrageous French styling, including the Figoni et Falaschi 1939 New York Worlds Fair Type 165. Pebble Beach has a frustrating rule that only pre-war cars are eligible for Best of Show, but a proud Benach went home with several trophies. The following spring, the Saoutchik beauty made its East Coast debut at the Amelia Island Concours where it won the People’s Choice trophy.

Remarkably, the original engine was discovered four years after the rebuild was completed, but refitting it will be down to the next owner after it’s auctioned with the car at RM’s Monterey sale on 13 August. With luck, this glorious Type 175 S may finally return to Europe. For me, the Monroe lookalike at the Goodwood Revival has always seemed out of place. So come on Lord March, how about the Delahaye as a course car with a busty Diana Dors doppelgänger at the wheel? Now that would be a showstopper!

This article was originally published in the September 2010 issue of Classic & Sports Car magazine, which retains the copyright to all words and images. Click here to see the terms and conditions.

Words: Mick Walsh; pictures: Ron Kimball

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Greg MacLeman

Greg MacLeman is a contributor to and former Features Editor of Classic & Sports Car, and drives a restored and uprated 1974 Triumph 2500TC

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