1949-Talbot-Lago-Type 26 Course Formula One Racing Monoposto

Description

1949 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Prix Monoposto
s/n 110006, Engine no. 45109
French Blue with Brown Leather

During the late 1930s Talbot Lago was emerging as force to be reckoned with on the International Grand Prix Circuit. Mr. Lago was a keen proponent of racing to promote Talbot’s up-market cars. With the company’s long-serving ex-Fiat engineer Walter Becchia, he directed design of a 4-liter six-cylinder overhead-valve sports car which in 1937 won the French, Tunis and Marseilles Grand Prix races, as well as the British RAC Tourist Trophy at Donington Park.

Encouraged by such success, Major Lago then launched a two-pronged attack upon Grand Prix racing, briefing engineer Becchia to design both a supercharged 3-liter V16-cylinder racing engine and to develop an alternative unsupercharged 4½-liter power unit from the company’s now proven high-performance sports car line.

Their V16-cylinder program would prove overly ambitious, hugely costly, and withered on the vine. For 1939 he authorized construction of three entirely new single-seat Grand Prix cars using Becchia’s latest 4½-liter six-cylinder engines. These Talbot-Lago GP cars made their racing debuts during 1939 and after World War II they reappeared, one of which was victorious four times during the 1947 season.

This particular car, s/n 110006, is the 4½-liter unsupercharged Formula 1 Talbot-Lago Type 26C in which first owner Georges Grignard – on April 30, 1950 – won the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Paris at the legendary Montlhéry Autodrome road circuit.

In 1949 Georges Grignard also co-drove this car with compatriot Yves Giraud-Cabantous to finish 2nd in the Paris GP and 7th at Pau. Driving solo, Georges Grignard also set 2nd fastest time at the Bellevue hill-climb and contested the Swiss, French, Albi and Czechoslovakian GPs in it. His friend and occasional racing partner Giraud-Cabantous also drove the car in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

In addition to Georges Grignard’s big win in the Paris Grand Prix in 1950, he also won the Doullens and Ars hill-climbs. He finished 7th in the major Penya Rhin Grand Prix in Barcelona, Spain, and finished 8th at Pau.

s/n 110006 was sold in 1951 to the enthusiastic Belgian racing syndicate of Jacques Swaters – Belgium’s future Ferrari importer – Baron Charles de Tornaco, Roger Laurent and André Pilette. The new cooperative Belgian racing team campaigned this Talbot-Lago, liveried in the national racing color of bright yellow, as “Ecurie Belgique”. Under this banner they entered s/n 110006 in the Belgian, Dutch, German, Italian and Albi Grand Prix races finishing 6th in their home Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps, and 7th at Albi.

During 1952, successes included 6th place in the Turin Grand Prix in Italy, and another Grand Prix victory in the Finnish Grand Prix around the Elaintaharnajo Park in central Helsinki, driven by Roger Laurent.

In the 1960s, the car was acquired by American Ray Dubois who sold it to classic car enthusiast Gerry Sherman of Pennsylvania. Sherman stated: “The car was in a bad state before the Belgians sold it in 1955-56 to Ray Dubois, who was a New York garage owner of Belgian extraction. It had serious problems with the engine. Without spares then being available he tried to adapt the chassis to fit a V8 Corvette motor but, fortunately, he dropped the idea before going too far. When I bought it for $900 in 1964 it was above all a souvenir of my youth as a student in Paris in 1951-52, when I had seen the T26Cs race at Montlhery.”

A lengthy and difficult restoration, during which he sought original spares from Monsieur Grignard himself. The car finally emerged running “perfectly” apart from minor problems with the magneto ignition, and Gerry Sherman ran the car at Watkins Glen, NY, in October 1973, after which it was acquired by the prominent American collector and connoisseur Henry Wessels.

More recently, a full, absolutely no-expense-spared engine rebuild undertaken by nationally respected experts Mike Wolther and Gary Okoren. Scott Sargent’s Pebble Beach winning Sargent Metalworks Company of Fairlee, Vermont attended to the cosmetic refurbishment. Work performed included stripping down to the rolling chassis, and re-shaping the exquisite but race worn tail section. Much attention was paid to the refurbishment of the existing panels and components, with nothing being replaced. The restoration and refurbishment of 006 concentrated primarily on the engine rebuild at a cost of approximately $150,000!

Accordingly, s/n 110006 is sold with a freshly rebuilt, zero time engine which was completed in June of 2009. The documentation file accompanying the car reveals details of how the unit has been repaired and painstakingly rebuilt in every detail, featuring a renovated block, fresh crankshaft, connecting rods, cams, lifters, valves, retainers, keepers, pistons, clips and rings. Receipts for the work undertaken confirm the present vendor’s major investment for the car’s future which a new owner is now saved from having to undertake.

Beautifully restored with outstanding period Grand Prix race winning history, and evocative of a golden era of international motorsports, this restored T26 is at home as the centerpiece in a collection or on the historic racing circuit.