delahaye The 1936 Paris Auto Show Delahaye short wheelbase chassis/engine was recently sold at auction. This iconic automobile is representative of Delahaye best work from mid 1933 to 1939. Some of these cars are still considered among the most beautiful cars ever built – reflecting French artistic excellence. I’ve been working on a 1:5 scale version of a long wheelbase Delahaye from this time period using a 3d scan from an original car. The period photo above of the black 1936 Paris Salon Delahaye (chassis 47247, after it had been purchased by Ali Khan, who requested that the original orange and tea-pink color scheme be changed to black) was wrecked and rebodied, but the chassis as noted still exists. I’ve been playing around with the scan and built this 1:5 model in eight sections and then assembled into what you see here. I want to adjust the design for the short wheelbase and do an accurate version with proper door cut line. My research on the French designer/coachbuilder Figoni et Falaschi has been very interesting. “As Adatto reveals, it is believed that none other than Harley Earl approached Joseph Figoni after the war to come to Detroit and work in the GM design studio. Wisely, Figoni declined. No mention of this meeting was made in William Knoedelseder’s book about Harley Earl entitled Fins, although he pointed out that Harley went to the Paris Auto Salons every year. No doubt Harley was paying particular attention (not to do so would have been impossible) to Figoni’s Delahayes. Knoedelseder also quotes from a 1939 GM PR booklet, “Modes and Motors” which describes the relationship between the corporate designer and the ‘artist’. Although not written by Earl, it was believed the words reflected his thoughts. Wrote Knoedelseder, “The book told of the ‘artist’ who once regarded manufacturers with ‘thinly veiled contempt’ and thought of them as rough, coarse men whose sole purpose in life was to make money.” It describes how “The job of the designer is to bring together the science of the engineer and the skill of the artist.” It is unlikely that Joseph Figoni would have excelled under such circumstances.” -from https://velocetoday.com/figoni-on-delahaye-reviewed/ Update on the Delahaye project I’ve been working on: since the body on the 1936 Paris show car is long gone, the plan is to recreate the entire body and interior from scratch. The problem exists that this first car, and a couple after were built on a short wheelbase rather than the later longer wheelbase chassis. So, we only have a limited number of photos and a few Delahaye experts to rely on to recreate the body for the original chassis that IS the Paris show car. Mike and crew at AMS looked the model over last week. The 1:5 Delahaye model that I previously showed on Instagram was 3d printed from a 3D scan of an actual long wheelbase Delahaye in a collection of cars in California. This car is about 150-200mm longer than the Paris shoe car. Mike was planning on cutting this model up to create the proper scale length but I mentioned that I might be able to do the slice and dice digitally. BUT it has to flow. My job this past week was to use the original photos as reference along with some measurements and then see if I could work with the 3D scan to create a short wheelbase car. For those of you who don’t know, a 3D scan is only so useful for chopping and slicing and reconfiguring especially when it’s a big open car. The scan is helpful for certain, but it requires patching holes in the original scan, making it solid mesh with thickness (without loosing resolution), then converting it to a useable mesh that can be modeled (without loosing resolution), AND then the slicing and dicing begins along with modifying any place you cut, and restoring the proper shape. It took me a few days and some late nights but I found a workflow that works, and I’m on my way to editing the car. I still need to lower the door line and adjust the door belt line, and tweak the angle of the front grill and shape of the front balance, but my system is working and I have something that is fairly clean to show for last weeks work. It was cool to use some of the same techniques (only digitally) that I learned when I chopped my Beetle. Now I get to fuss with things until I can get the guys at AMS to provide their expertise to the model. Stay tuned… The 1936 Delahaye was originally painted orange and tea pink when shown at the Paris auto show. I thought it might be fun to think about what this tea pink/orange combo might have looked like. Shown here on my remodeled short wheelbase chassis.