Darmont

The Darmonts came to Morgans as agents and racers. When W. G. McMinnies and Frank Thomas took a Morgan over the line first, and fastest, in the cyclecar Grand Prix at Amiens in 1913, classed as a sidecar while the cyclecar class went to the Bédélia,source 2 the make became famous in France, and among those who sold it were Franquebalme, Guyot and Darmont et Baudelocque, a name also spelt Badelogue.source 3source 4 At the Gaillon hill-climb, in a year not established, a Darmont on a Morgan was first among the cyclecars.source 5 By the Osenat catalogue’s account, about 150 found buyers in 1914 and three times as many a year later.source 3

Quelques 150 cyclecars Darmont trouvèrent preneurs en 1914. Ces derniers étaient trois fois plus nombreux un an plus tard…

Who exactly the brothers were is not clear. The sources name the founder Robert or Roger, his brother André, and a René, and the encyclopedias simply say “R. Darmont”; one text uses three of the names at once.source 3source 6source 7 Robert Darmont, in one account, was a French Morgan importer and racing driver.source 8

A licence, or a gentlemen’s agreement

After the war Morgan let its French agents build the car in France, but the date depends on the source. The Morgan histories say an agreement with Darmont and Baudelocque was reached in 1919; Osenat ties the licence to Paul Houel’s Morgan win at the Circuit de l’Eure that year.source 4source 9source 3 Gazoline says Darmont imported Morgans from 1919 to 1923 with small changes, a bonnet carried on from the scuttle and discs over the wheels, and began building them in a large workshop at Courbevoie only during 1923, under what the specialist Jacques Potherat calls a moral but not a legal licence.source 1 The encyclopedias date the marque itself to 1919, 1920 or 1924.source 6source 10source 11source 7source 12 It was the only firm to build Morgans under licence (more in built under licence).source 3source 4source 9

At first the Darmont-Morgan was all but the Malvern car. Some parts came from England and some were made at Courbevoie, and the crankcase carried both names in raised letters.source 3source 4 It had Morgan’s sliding-pillar front suspension and two-speed chain drive, the engine stood out in front of a narrow grille, and “Morgan” was painted in large letters on each side of the tail.source 1

René Darmont prenait d’ailleurs plaisir à se qualifier de ‘constructeur de Morgan’.

Darmont’s own

The firm soon made its own V-twins, on JAP and Blackburne patterns, and its own bodies, and offered MAG engines, air- or water-cooled and even with four valves, and JAPs.source 3source 1source 4 By the Paris Salon of October 1928 it showed a whole range of Morgan-type three-wheelers, air- and water-cooled, in several states of tune.source 6 At the end of the 1920s more than 14 cars a week left the works, though Osenat warns that the firm’s published sales very likely counted cars sold by other distributors.source 3

The Spécial, from 1926 or 1927, was the fast one: usually a Blackburne-type overhead-valve twin of about 1,100 cc with two magnetos, about 40 hp against the earlier engine’s 28, about 130 km/h (81 mph) and over 150 km/h (93 mph) when prepared. It had a rounded radiator top, front brakes worked by a pedal, side exhausts and a polished, faired tail, and it cost twice as much as the Runabout, yet Gazoline calls it a fine commercial success.source 1source 6 It could be had with a supercharger, a Cozette, and with a three-speed gearbox and reverse in place of two speeds and none.source 7source 3source 10

On the road and the track the Darmonts did what Morgans did. They finished first, second and third in the Paris–Nice trial of 1921, won hill-climbs such as the Mont Ventoux, and came second among the three-wheelers in the Bol d’Or of 1927 (more in racing and rallying).source 6source 11source 13 Marcel Dhôme set world records for passenger three-wheelers of up to 750 cc in 1924, and A. Darmont, probably André, more in 1928.source 14

The Étoile de France

In 1931, or 1932 by Wikipedia’s account, came a cheaper sports model, the Étoile de France, built until 1935 with a side-valve air-cooled twin of 1,087 cc and about 25 hp. It had a false grille painted in the body colour, a very long tail, motorcycle mudguards and no front brakes, and it weighed 190 kg in running order and reached 115 km/h (71 mph).source 1 Its throttle was a hand lever on the steering wheel, not very modern, as Gazoline says, when rivals other than Morgan had pedals.source 1 It was among the very few cars still on sale in the 1930s with two speeds and no reverse.source 3source 1 The Aéroluxe of 1934 hid the twin behind a modern grille likened to a Citroën Rosalie’s.source 1source 10

Le Darmont est le tricyclecar le plus populaire au pays de Molière.

Four wheels, and the end

The V-Junior, on sale from the autumn of 1935 by Wikipedia’s account and from 1936 by Georgano’s, was a light four-wheeled sports car with a twin of about 1,100 cc, and it still had a hand throttle on the steering wheel.source 6source 15source 7 By Osenat’s account it ended the three-wheelers the next year but could not stop the decline, as buyers turned to closed cars. At the start of the Second World War the brothers had to file for bankruptcy, and the works closed in 1939.source 3source 6source 15

In 1971 the collector Roger Brioult described his last visit, before Courbevoie council requisitioned the site. The machine tools had been stacked against the doors in 1939 to keep thieves out; the roof tiles had been stolen in the war, and the earth floor was overgrown. Wings lay one on another, as if waiting to be put away, and among the aero, motorcycle and cyclecar engines was a Vinot-Deguingand. In a locked workshop he found a single-cylinder 500 cc racer, water-cooled with a chain-driven supercharger, his buttercup-yellow No. 14.source 3

Dans un petit atelier fermé à clé : la merveille de la maison, endormie depuis 1939 s’est éveillée pour nous…

Little is recorded of the Sandford three-wheelers in the sources read. A driver named Stuart Sandford raced Morgans in France: his Morgan-MAG retired after one lap of the cyclecar Grand Prix at Le Mans in August 1920, and his Morgan retired again in the 1921 race.source 16source 2 Whether he was the man behind the Sandford make is not recorded. A Sandford also ran in the Paris–Nice trial of 1921 that the Darmonts won.source 13 Boddy writes that Darmont and Sandford later brought out their own versions of the Morgan, and a list of French Morgan-type three-wheelers in a Polish magazine of 1929 names both.source 2source 17 In a results list of the 1920s, A. Darmont and Dhôme on Darmont-Morgans meet Sandfords.source 18 The Sandford firm was at Levallois-Perret, and Raymond Siran, who founded D’Yrsan, had worked for it.source 19source 20 No dates, details or count of Sandford’s own three-wheelers have been found.

Raymond Siran de Cavanac, formerly of Sandford, founded his own firm in 1923 to make three-wheelers at Asnières-sur-Seine, near Paris, under the name D’Yrsan.source 19source 20source 21 They were Morgan-like, with the single wheel at the back, but with water-cooled Ruby four-cylinder engines instead of V-twins, in a tubular chassis with independent front suspension on transverse springs.source 19source 20source 22source 23 The Model A had a side-valve Ruby of 904 cc (55 × 95 mm). At the Paris Salon of October 1924 the overhead-valve Model BS of 972 cc joined it, at 10,500 francs as a torpedo against 9,650 for the A; German Wikipedia dates the BS to 1926. A DS followed with 1,097 cc and 35 hp.source 19source 20

In 1927 came a four-wheeled Grand Sport, also Ruby-engined.source 19source 20 By the GTÜ’s account the three-wheelers stopped in 1928, leaving the four-wheelers, and production ended in 1930; with Darmont, it calls D’Yrsan the most successful marque in French cyclecar racing.source 22source 19source 20 About 530 three-wheelers were built, most of them BSs, and about 50 four-wheelers, by German and English Wikipedia, which draw on the same reference books.source 19source 20

At Le Mans on 15–16 June 1929 a supercharged Grand Sport of 749 cc, No. 31, driven by Trillaud and Henri Lachner, was the smallest car in the race. It was left on the line, Trillaud losing seven minutes pushing it to start, and retired after nine laps, about two hours, with engine failure; a second D’Yrsan, of 1.1 litres, did not arrive.source 24 The sources read trace no surviving D’Yrsan.

A recent census by the Amicale Tricyclecariste de France, the club that helps owners with parts, counted about 200 surviving Darmonts of all types, nearly 25 of them Étoiles de France. Gazoline valued an Étoile de France at €25,000 in 2008 and €45,000 in 2018. Its weak points, the magazine says, are wear in the bottom end, pistons and cylinders, and the chassis tubes, which rot from the condensation of the exhaust they carry.source 1

At Osenat’s sale at Paris-Fontainebleau on 17 March 2013, lot 307 was the 500 cc supercharged Darmont Spécial Compétition from Roger Brioult’s collection, raced by Marcel Dhôme, estimated at €50,000–80,000; the result has not been found. The catalogue recommends Frédéric Viginier’s Darmont as the reference book.source 3