To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE at RM Sothebys' The
Petersen Automotive Museum Auction event, 8 December 2018.
Estimate:
$45,000 - $55,000
- A beautiful microcar by the founder of the �curie France racing
team
- Fully restored and presented in French Racing Blue
- One of very few survivors
Paul Vall�e was a wealthy industrialist with a complex and
interesting personality and who could anticipate novel ideas well
before anyone else it seems. He ran a successful transport
business, married into wealth, and opened a mechanical shop called
Soci�t� Industrielle de Constructions et de R�paration des
Automobiles Francaises (S.I.C.R.A.F.). He founded and ran a
successful grand prix team, the �curie France, which fielded the
magnificent Talbot-Lago T26 racing cars driven by legendary drivers
like Louis Chiron. However, he regarded Grand Prix racing not as an
end in itself, but as a way of promoting his other businesses,
scooters included.
Vall�e had anticipated the widespread need for a scooter during the
post-war recovery period very early on, but it was overtaken by
Vespa and Lambretta, who took the idea a great deal further. The
Paul Vall�e scooter won enthusiastic praise, and it was an idea he
refined continually until the 1955 introduction of the Paul Vall�e
Chantecler at the Paris Salon of 1955.
It was a three-wheeler with a streamlined teardrop fiberglass body
tapering to a pointed tail. The bench seat is wide and comfortable,
the low sides and D-shaped steering wheel offering easy entrance.
Conventional folding top bows were eschewed in favour of a highly
original T-shaped single fiberglass bow, which retracted into the
body. Flat spring-steel bumpers in the front and rear are a useful
addition to what was intended as an urban runabout. It has been
fully and professionally restored by the Bruce Weiner Microcar
Museum, and it is beautifully presented, very appropriately in
French racing blue.
It is estimated that production of these delightful microcar
runabouts only numbered about 200, of which surviving examples are
exceptionally rare.To view this car and others currently consigned
to this auction, please visit the RM website at
rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/ca18.
