Four fanciful Figoni & Falaschis - but where?

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These four photographs come from the NCAD (Netherlands Centre for Automotive History Documents) collection, but are said to originate from the Piet Olyslager archive. Olyslager was the self-taught Dutchman who drew so many pretty pre-war designs before setting up his motor manual publishing company in 1948. He’d also worked for Bugatti and Talbot-Lago at one time and was a classic car collector himself.

The cars are unmistakably Delahayes, with one Delage, sporting Figoni et Falaschi bodies and all the pictures are said to date from 1938, with the Delahaye pictures having signature markings in them. Pretty cars, oh yes, if not slightly overdecorative perhaps. And we are positive you lot will be able to identify all of them here and tell us what their subsequent owners had for breakfast this morning.

But what struck us in these pictures is the backdrop. Figoni et Falaschi was based on the rue Lemoine in Boulogne-sur-Seine at the time, near to the Longchamp race track. Is that where these pictures were taken? These might very well have been taken on a November day in Zeist, the Dutch town where Piet Olyslager’s organisation cemented itself. The house seen in two of these pictures could well be Dutch, as could the flat landscape.

No, it wouldn’t make sense and we’d be the first to stand corrected on that count. Then again, would you believe us if we told you about a Figoni et Falaschi-bodied Delahaye discovered by a Dutchman in rural Indonesia (click here and here for more information)? 

Words by Jeroen Booij, pictures Nederlands Centrum voor Autohistorische Documentatie

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