Description
Author: Lord Montagu Of Beaulieu, Hardbound, 323 Pages, ISBN: 0498076946. 1st Edition, 1971
Researched by Michael Sedgwick - Second-hand copy in good order
The three countries covered by this volume of Lost Causes—France, Belgium and Spain—once had prosperous motor industries. France's was the first to achieve international renown, even though it only exploited a German invention ; Belgian cars, better known outside their homeland, exemplified solid engineering and inspired workmanship; Spain's marques were comparatively few, but they were headed by Birkigt's Hispano-Suiza and encouraged by a monarch, Alfonso XIII, who was himself a first-class driver and knew what he wanted.
Yet today the picture is one of contraction ; war, invasion and civil unrest have taken their toll of European manufacturers to an extent not always appreciated in Britain. Sometimes a factory acquired a new nationality, as in the case of the German Mathis which became French after 1918; Nazi occupation could bring a charge of 'collaboration' which stood in the way of vital loans when a manufacturer later needed to reconstruct his business; a factory with a reliable second line of defence could lose it by nationalization or by obsolescence at a time when there was no money to spare for diversification.
Other calamities which killed off once-flourishing marques seemed to have been acts of God ; however, a closer look at these apparently inexplicable reverses reveals the same cause : exuberance of design insufficiently backed by cash. Six-wheel models, bizarre two-strokes, front-wheel drive, twelve-in-line engines—these are a few of the ideas which seemed promising at the time yet eventually helped their manufacturers down the road to bankruptcy.
Here lie many handsome and famous marques with their own characteristics : the elegance of the Hispano-Suiza ; the dash of Salmson ; the ruthless individuality of the Voisin ; Darracq's involved history; and the long decline of the de Dion.
As in his first volume of Motoring Lost Causes, Lord Montagu has brought his vast knowledge of the subject to a meticulous survey of the scene. Based on primary research, the book is full of new facts and information gathered from countries all over the world, besides providing some highly entertaining stories from the mechanically hazardous bygone days of early motoring.
