From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
FIGONI ET FALASCHI: Coachbuilding truly became an art form amongst just a small handful of the builders. Of these, perhaps there is one name that stands supreme - that of Figoni et Falaschi.
Giuseppe Figoni was born in Placenza in the Italian region of Emilia in 1894. When he was three his parents moved to Paris and while still very young, Giuseppi was apprenticed to a charron, or wagon builder, by the name of Vachet.
In time the firm became Carrosserie Automobile building automobile bodies. Figoni excelled from the start in the design of elegant, coachwork on cars of a sporting nature. In those days, wealthy owners brought chassis that appealed to them to a coachbuilder to be clothed in bodywork.
Figoni soon built up a clientele amongst the owners of Ballot, Dusenbergs, Bugatti and most particularly, Delage models. Figoni's earliest work of real distinction was on Delage chassis and long elegant fenders became his early trademark design.
Figoni's Delages were all high powered sporting cars and this association with performance led other manufacturers to him. In 1932, he bodied the winning Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 of Raymond Sommer and Luigi Chinetti when they won at Le Mans.
A year later, when Sommer and Nuvolari won Le Mans they did so in a Figoni-bodied Alfa Romeo, cementing his reputation as France's foremost designer of competition car bodies.
There is a story that around this time, Ettore Bugatti persuaded Charles Weiffenbach to breath new life into the Delahaye marque by embarking on a motor racing programme. Supposedly, Bugatti did so to ensure that his own Bugatti marque would have a worthwhile competitor to race against.
If this is true, then Le Patron must have regretted his move on the many occasions when the Figoni-bodied Delahayes outperformed the products of Molsheim. Henceforth, Figoni would be most identified with the products of Delahye.
In 1933, Tony Lago was sent by Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq in Wolverhampton to revive their ailing French subsidery, Automobiles Talbot. Lago's recipe was to take its sportiest model, tune its engine and fit it with a Figoni designed body. The receipe was successful and overnight the Talbot Lago became one of the most potent European sporting models.
The 1930s were the golden days of coachbuilding, and although most designs were derivative, Figoni managed to be truly original as well as innovative. As such, Figoni's designs were often copied but none of these copies had the presence or perfect lines of a Figoni original.
With the onset of the second World War, the Figoni et Falaschi (Falaschi had become a financial partner of Figoni) factory was occupied and turned over to the manufacture of aircraft parts. Figoni was allowed retain a small area of the factory where he passed the war making small domestic heaters.
In 1945 he returned to coachbuilding, displaying a design based on the little Lancia Belna chassis at the first postwar Salon. Once again he returned to Delahaye chassis, but things had changed and there was no longer the demand for extravagant bodywork designs for wealthy owners.
In 1949 he produced a delightful design based on the Simca 1.2 Sports chassis. Simca bought the rights to this and produced it as the Simca Aronde. Subsequently Figoni produced an alternative body for the same chassis and manufactured about 400 of these before Simca stopped supplying him with the components he required.
Soon afterwards Falaschi withdrew from the firm and although Figoni continued designing up to 1955, the writing was on the wall and he switched to being an agent selling other manufacturers cars.
Giuseppe Figoni, who brought the design of car bodies to an art form, died in 1978, aged 84.