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  Delage Bequet Special      

  Article Image gallery (22) 1 Specifications  
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Country of origin:France
Produced in:1923
Numbers built:1
Author:Wouter Melissen
Last updated:January 23, 2015
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Click here to download printer friendly versionStrapping a surplus fighter-plane engine to a racing car chassis was a popular 'go fast' solution during the 1920s but few of these conversions were so well executed Delage Bequet Special created in 1926. Built on the behest of privateer racer and trained pilot Maurice Bequet and business partner Roland Coty, it combined an obsolete Delage Grand Prix chassis with a Hispano Suiza V8 engine originally used in a Spad airplane.

Bequet had been no stranger to the Spad and the Hispano Suiza V8 as he had worked during the Great War with Louis Blériot as an engineer at Spad. Following the Armistice, this gave him access to surplus engines. Among his first notable outings behind the wheel was a third place finish in the 1922 Targa Florio, driving a Peugeot. Before acquiring the Delage chassis, he had also raced a 1914 Alda, fitted with the same Hispano Suiza V8 engine.

The chassis used is believed the very first of the Delage 2LCV Grand Prix cars built in 1923. This sophisticated machine featured a two-litre V12 engine, which was originally raced without and later with a supercharger. The 2LCV was not particularly successful and a reduction of the maximum displacement to 1.5 litres in 1926 rendered the car obsolete for Grand Prix racing. This prompted Delage to sell the car to make way for the altogether more successful 15 S8 raced in 1926 and 1927.

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  Article Image gallery (22) 1 Specifications