1914 Delage Grand Prix

This charismatic Delage was built using period components as a faithful recreation of the car in which Albert Guyot won the 1908 Grand Prix des Voiturettes. 

Held on 6 July – the day before the main Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France – the race comprised six laps of the demanding, 47-mile Circuit de la Seine-Inférieur. The triangular route started in Dieppe before heading south-east to Londinières, north to Eu, and then south-west back to Dieppe. 

Orléans-born Guyot was the son of a locksmith and was an early agent for Delage. He had a long and successful racing career, including five appearances in the Indianapolis 500, and following World War One he drove for the works Duesenberg Grand Prix team. Such was his standing in France that he was awarded the coveted Legion d’Honneur.

The 1908 Grand Prix des Voiturettes attracted a strong entry that included the Lion-Peugeot cars of Jules Goux and Georges Boillot, but Guyot took a comfortable victory in five hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds. That was seven minutes ahead of second-placed Louis Naudin, who drove a Sizaire-Naudin powered by a 1963cc single-cylinder engine.

The basis for this recreation of Guyot’s winning car was the complete rolling chassis of a Delage Type AM. The chassis, gearbox, back axle and other major components are therefore all from an Edwardian-era Delage – chassis number 6626. 

The build was entrusted to two extremely well-respected names in the Edwardian-car world: Hughie Walker and his father Mark, who is well-known for the spectacular way in which he drives his Land Speed Record 200hp Darracq. After studying numerous period photographs, they built a body that closely replicates the one fitted to Guyot’s car. 

In place of the single-cylinder engine that powered Guyot to victory is an Edwardian-era 3.7-litre, four-cylinder Chevrolet unit, complete with a three-port cylinder head. Its overhead-valve, crossflow arrangement gave the Walkers scope for considerable performance improvements, and it now features new, balanced, pressure-fed crankshaft and rods, plus a new oil pump. A new camshaft with increased lift and modern timing has been fitted, plus new valves, valve springs and pistons, and the compression ratio has been raised to 7:1.

The original four-speed gearbox was totally rebuilt (a spare gearbox is included with the car), while the back axle had a new crownwheel and pinion made in order to give gearing of 30mph per 1000rpm. 

Following its completion in 2023, the Delage was raced by its owner at the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s Mallory Park meeting. The car then received an invitation to the 2024 Goodwood Members’ Meeting, where it competed in one of the weekend’s most popular races – the SF Edge Trophy.

Driven by Hughie Walker, it started from sixth place on the 25-strong grid despite the fact that it was one of the smallest-engined cars entered. Walker then drove an impressively committed race, at one point out-braking his father’s Darracq into Woodcote during a spirited dice. The little Delage crossed the line in a valiant sixth position, right on the tail of Duncan Pittaway’s ‘Beast of Turin’ – the Fiat S27 to which it was giving away more than 20 litres in engine capacity. 

Now being offered for sale at the Classic Motor Hub, this highly evocative Delage is perfectly finished for a car of this pioneering era, with its brush-painted bodywork sporting the same number 1 that Guyot’s car wore at Dieppe. It would make an extremely usable and exciting road car, and has a conventional modern pedal layout with the throttle on the right. Mounting the Chevrolet engine in a lightweight chassis has certainly given it plenty of performance, and parts for the robust four-cylinder unit are still available in the US.

Not only that, the Delage is eligible for Vintage Sports-Car Club events as well as high-profile races such as the SF Edge Trophy at Goodwood, where it has already shown itself to be extremely competitive.