Delhaye 135 Competition
Born in 1894, the Italian Giuseppe came to Paris at the age of 14 and initially worked as a coachbuilder. After the First World War, he was able to take over a small body shop and soon began working for Bugatti, as well as Duesenberg and, from 1932, Alfa Romeo. But he made a name for himself mainly with his bodies for Delage, with pretty cabriolets and coupes with sweeping lines being his speciality. In 1935, Ovidio Falaschi joined the company primarily as a financier, and the new company not only changed its name but also switched from being a Delage specialist to a Delahaye specialist. In the same year, the Italian French also presented the so-called ‘flowing’ design for the first time, which Figoni & Falaschi saw as an answer to the increasingly conservative shapes in the bodywork of the time. And it was also an answer to the Mercedes-Benz 540K ‘Autobahnkurier’ by Erdmann & Rossi, which was presented in 1934 and was generally regarded as the most beautiful vehicle of its time. In 1936, Figoni went one step further. A Delahaye 135 ordered by the French racing driver Albert Perrot is considered to be the first vehicle with the design that later became famous as the ‘Goutte d’Eau’, water drop, (especially as a body on the Talbot-Lago). But, yes, there were also Delahaye ‘Teardrops’, six examples, of which three are said to still exist.
