1953 Delahaye 235 Coupe Chapron Paris Auto Show
La Vie en Bleu et Créme

We have no certainty that La Mome Piaf (the little sparrow) ever owned one of these Delahaye. Two of her automobiles are still known to exist: a Packard and a Renault Frégate, despite the fact that she suffered four automobile accidents. Still, we can imagine her at the wheel of this Delahaye; or at least we can listen to the shadow of her throaty voice coming from its radio.

Text: © Nancy Black and Isaac Hernandez
Photos: © Isaac Hernandez

It’s easy to pretend that we are at the 1953 Paris Auto Show watching this beauty spin on the rotating platform, since this 235 is still pretty much in original condition. The sweet part is that after awakening from our daydream, we get to drive this little bird around California, and not just in our dreams.

Our featured car was driven by a Chef de Police in France, until it was purchased around 1982 by Jacques Harguindeguy, a French Basque residing in northern California, who loves Delahaye (his 1937 Figoni et Falaschi Delahaye won Best of Show at Pebble Beach in 2001). The odometer of the right-hand-drive 235 marked only 16,000 km when he bought it, and the wire wheels still wore the original Firestone white-wall tires with which the car was exhibited at the 1953 Paris Auto Show. Jacques replaced the cracked tires with new black Firestones, and drove it in the California Mille classic car rally. In the time since, Harguindeguy takes the car for short spins occasionally; he has driven it for about 3,000 km since, but he has enjoyed every single moment.

That’s because climbing into the last-ever Chapron show car is like time-traveling. Other than the tires, the car is in complete original condition. There’s a beauty, an arrested sense of time, in sitting on the original blue Hermes leather seats, with hands on the large steering wheel, the same that Henri Chapron held when he was working on the car. It’s all there, as if preserved in a time capsule: radio, heater, defroster… there are so many features that Jacques has a sheet in the side pocket explaining what each of the buttons under the dashboard does. Other than the worn carpets, the interior is in immaculate condition, without even a stitch out of place in the seats.

The 235 chassis was introduced in 1951, based on 135 MS pre-war chassis, but with heavier front cross members for improved rigidity, different front suspension and larger water passages to improve cooling. As many as 86 of them were built from 1951 to 1954: chassis numbers 818000 to 818085. Although most of them came with the standard Philippe Charbonneaux body, one could order just the chassis and have a custom body made. Henri Chapron was the most popular option. More rare are the ones with carrosseries by Faget Varnet, Saoutchick or Figoni. Some had two rows of seats; this last Chapron show car had just one. Needing only room for two passengers, the short roofline is especially attractive...

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