Car Restoration Projects

In November 2024, R M Sotheby’s auctioned one of the rarest surviving racing cars of the pre-WWII era. This Delahaye 135S was one of only two Works competition cars built and was formerly owned by motorsport legend, Rob Walker.

As a high-performance, sporting version of the Delahaye 135, the 135S was designed to compete in single-seat and sports car racing in the late 1930s. Fewer than 20 were built and only the last two production vehicles were retained by the factory racing team. 

The 135S was produced from 1935 and was one of the most advanced racing cars of its time. It was powered by a 3555cc six-cylinder engine with an overhead camshaft and triple carburettors, and was capable of producing up to 160bhp. The engine was coupled to a four-speed gearbox and live rear axle. 

The 135S was built on a ladder-frame chassis, featuring an X-shaped cross-braced frame, independent, transverse-leaf front suspension and two-leaf-spring rear. Four-wheel drum braking was hydraulic.

135S with original bodywork – Fiskens

The minimalist aluminium bodywork was designed by coach builders Figoni et Falaschi and featured detachable cycle mudguards and headlights.

Delahaye 135S cars won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1936, 1937 and 1939, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1938.

This particular car – chassis 47188 – has a fascinating ownership history, including Prince Chula and Rob Walker, and was raced by Albert Divo, Arthur Dobson, Prince Bira, Tony Rolt and Stirling Moss. It boasts 51 known entries at famous circuits, including Antwerp, Brooklands, Cork, Crystal Palace, Donington, Goodwood, Isle of Man, Le Mans, Montlhéry and Pau.

It was put up for sale in November 2024 by the family of the late Rob Walker, who owned the car from 1939 until 1953. He sold it, but then bought it back and began its restoration in 1970.

Delahaye 135S cars – standard bodywork (rear) and streamlined versions (front) – Fiskens

Chassis 47188’s brief Works career began on 24th May 1936, when legendary French driver Albert Divo narrowly missed out on a podium finish at the Trois Heures de Marseille. A month later he finished 12th at the Grand Prix de l’ACF, then sixth at the Grand Prix de la Marne in Reims.

The Delahaye then crossed the Channel, via London importer, Count Heyden and was assigned the registration number it wears today, ‘DUV 870’. 

The car was raced by Tommy Clarke, in the 1936 RAC Tourist Trophy and the Donington Grand Prix, before he sold it to the Siamese Prince Chula for his White Mouse Stable, to be driven by his famous cousin, Prince Bira.

After duelling with the Napier-Railton at Brooklands, chassis 47188 was reacquired by Count Heyden, who loaned it throughout the 1938 season for appearances at Cork, Brooklands, Antwerp and Crystal Palace. 

The Delahaye was then put up for sale, taking pride of place in Heyden’s Park Lane showroom, where it caught the eye of young Cambridge student and heir to the Johnnie Walker whisky fortune, Rob Walker. 

At Stg£400, the asking price far exceeded Walker’s Stg£30-per-month allowance, but a deal was done when Hayden ‘made him a friendly introduction to hire purchase’.

Walker put the Delahaye to work immediately, coming third at Brooklands’ Second Easter Mountain Handicap, before lending it to Price Bira for a victorious run at Crystal Palace. 

On 29 May 1939, Walker took the 135S to Brooklands, for a race to decide who owned the fastest road car in Britain. Walker trusted the Delahaye to talented ERA driver, Arthur Dobson, who was narrowly beaten by Hugh Hunter’s Mille Miglia-winning Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 in the first leg, but, in the second, the Delahaye came from the back of the field to take victory, after gearbox trouble struck the Alfa. 

With that, Walker was awarded Stg£50 and a Gordon Crosby painting commemorating the race, and the Delahaye was declared ‘Britain’s Fastest Road Car’. 

Delahaye 135S driven by John Crouch – 1949 Australian GP winner

In 1939, Walker was involved in an accident that required stitches in his left thumb. En route to the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, chassis 47188 was sent to the Delahaye works in Paris, where its manual crash box was replaced by a Cotal electromagnetic pre-selector unit that he could drive without further damaging his injured left hand.

Walker called upon Ian Connell to share driving duties at La Sarthe, but, after just eight hours, a damaged exhaust pipe burned Connell’s feet so badly that he was forced to abandon driving.

In true British fashion, Walker took over for the next 16 hours, changing into a pin-striped suit for the early evening driving session, but every time he came into the pits he had to plunge his rope-soled shoes into a bucket of cold water. 

Naturally, the pin-striped suit gave way to a more hour-appropriate Prince of Wales checked suit in the morning, along with a swig of champagne as a reviver after the long night stint.

After being driven to Paris for a post-race celebration, the Delahaye was put into storage and Walker went off to War, where he served as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm and survived the torpedoing of the HMS Cleopatra.

In 1940 Walker married on the understanding that he would never race again, so he continued in competition as an entrant.

In 1949, the Delahaye made a return to the Circuit de la Sarthe for that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Guy Jason-Henry paired with Tony Rolt. The team was running in fifth place on lap 126, when the engine bearings failed. It turned out the 3.6-litre straight-six mill hadn’t been touched since 1939.

You couldn’t make up the next bit. In 1950, chassis 47188 was entered in the Montlhéry 12 Hours. The car was withdrawn, citing mechanical maladies, but the truth was Jason-Henry had been recruited by criminals, to help smuggle contraband, in the form of thousands of Swiss watches, into the UK.

He allowed the car to have one of its 15-gallon fuel tanks replaced by a fake that was stuffed with these tax-free ‘imports’. On his return to Newhaven via Dieppe, Jason-Henry was detained and the car was impounded. 

He became Queen’s Evidence and was later acquitted, but Walker was charged Stg£300 for the release of the car. Indignant, Walker wrote a letter to The Times, asking if Cunard Line had to buy back the Queen Mary every time a passenger was caught smuggling a pair of nylon stockings!

The Delahaye bodywork was slightly modified to reduce drag, by deleting the mudguard-mounted headlights, enlarging the faired-in auxiliary lights and streamlining the mudguards, but at the end of the 1952 season Walker sold the car to Dan Margulies. 

Margulies entered several events at Goodwood and Silverstone before selling the Delahaye in 1954. It was acquired by shipping magnate, Major Edward Thomson, Ecurie Ecosse’s major backer. 

Sixteen years later, when the Thomson collection was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 1970, in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Walker placed a successful bid of Stg£5000. 

The Delahaye was in a sorry state, so Walker commissioned John Chisman to fabricate a new body, copying a precision scale model of the car that had been created for Walker by Henri Baigent. 

Eight months later, DUV 870, as it looks today, emerged in French racing blue, but with some of its racing patina preserved.  

In 1973 the Delahaye returned to the Circuit de La Sarthe for a 50th Anniversary historic sports car support race for the 24 Hours race. Tony Rolt and Stirling Moss were due to drive but Rolt struggled to fit so Moss did the race singlehandedly.

The car remained in the care of the Walker family and, in addition to being lent to a number of museums, was driven by Jude Law in the Johnnie Walker feature advertisement, A Gentleman’s Wager II, in 2015. Three years later, the car took to the track at Goodwood with son Robbie Walker at the wheel.

Marque expert, Jean-Paul Tissot, compiled a 19-page report on the car, complementing an independent inspection by UK specialist I S Polson. 

A letter from the RAC, a period ACO form and ‘RAC’ stampings on the block confirm that the current engine was used during the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans. Given that its pre-War Le Mans retirement was due to worn engine bearings, it is likely this engine did the 1939 event as well.

Hopefully, the next owner will be tempted to take the car back to Le Mans, continuing its spectacular racing tradition. Hopefully, the drivers will be appropriately togged out in true Rob Walker tradition!

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