The half-decade preceding Hitler?s invasion of France gave rise to some of the most majestic interpretations of the automobile in the device?s then half-century of existence. Although Citroën had aimed for the upper end of the mass market with its 1934 Traction Avant, featuring unibody construction, at the high end of the market the action was squarely in the body-on-frame, specialized-coachwork realm. Firms such as Touring were doing admittedly wonderful work in Italy, but the French were working at another level entirely. Put simply, they were busy creating some of the most striking automobiles the world had ever seen. Voisin?s magnificent C28 Aérosport bowed in late 1935, mere months before Bugatti?s radical, riveted Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe of 1936. But there?s an argument to be made that, for unadulterated elegance, both cars were bettered a mere year after they arrived?by none other than the Talbot-Lago T150-C SS bodied by Figoni et Falaschi.
An evolution of Talbot-Lago?s T120, the T150-C featured a short-wheelbase chassis and a hot overhead-valve engine. Tony Lago, who?d taken control of the former Darracq works in Suresnes, outside Paris, had gone to London to license the Wilson preselector transmission and a suspension design from Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq, from which his own company had grown. Oddly enough, in 1958 Lago sold his company to Henri Pigozzi of Simca, which, in 1970, officially became part of Chrysler Europe alongside the former Rootes Group, which...