Talbot
Clement-Talbot was a early British car built from 1903 using Clement components assembled in England, and taken over by Darracq just after the Great war. Then there was an amalgamation with Sunbeam in the early 1920's to form the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq concern. In the mid 1930's the French portion of the company was sold off to Antonio Lago, and cars he built were sold as Darracq in the UK and Talbot in France, while the Clement-Talbot company in the UK was purchased by the Rootes group and after a few years the cars called Sunbeam-Talbot. Post war the Darracq name disappeared and the cars were Talbot-Lago. Grand Prix cars had been built prewar but they were outclassed, but post war the new built cars were a regular feature and won three Grand Prix, they won Le Mans in 1951, second in 1952 and should have won in 1953 . . . Their road cars (Record) were high quality and expensive, the 4 1/2 litre engines being an iron version of their Grand Prix engine, but the big engines were massively taxed in France. By 1955 a smaller 2.5 litre engine was made for their new Talbot 2500 Sport with 2+2 bodywork, with Lagos preference for a preselecor gearbox. After 1957 this car had the V8 BMW engine fitted and called the "America". Simca took over Talbot-Lago and the final 10 Talbot-Lago cars were fitted with the Simca Vedette V8 engine.
