The Unique Classic 1938 Delahaye 145 Coupe

The story of the Delahaye Type 145 really begins with Lucy O’Reilly Schell. The daughter of a construction magnate, she moved to France and started a family – but her passion for motor sport couldn’t be dimmed.

She began circuit racing with Bugattis in 1927, with some success, but by 1929 she’d moved on to rallying. She finished eighth on that year’s Monte Carlo in a Talbot M67, scooping a Coupe des Dames along the way. It was the first of a number of appearances at the event that yielded several podiums.

At the time, Delahaye had become known for building trucks, while its cars were deemed unexciting. The widow of one of the original Delahaye partners, Dame Madame Desmarais, had enough, and instructed her staff to build up a racing department. The first fruits of this labour were the four-cylinder 134 and six-cylinder 138.

Impressed by the models’ debut at the 1933 Paris Salon, O’Reilly Schell visited the Delahaye factory. She ordered the more powerful six-cylinder engine from the 138 to be placed in the short-chassis 134, and the 135 was born.

Over the next few years various versions of the 135 concept were born, but Schell wanted a car built specifically for racing. She drummed up enough support for a dozen 135 CS models to be built. However, in 1936 Delahaye disbanded the racing team. O’Reilly Schell picked up the baton, forming the Écurie Bleue. Using money from her father’s estate, she underwrote the development of a new 4.5-litre V12 engine – the car would be called the Delahaye 145. Chassis no. 48772 is the second in a series of four run by Écurie Bleue between 1937 and 1939. These pictures were taken at Concours of Elegance 2023, giving me the chance to find out about its history.

After its racing career came to an end, the car was put into storage until the end of World War Two. In 1947 it was sent to Henri Chapron for new, modern coachwork and, a year later, the finished model was delivered complete with a Type 165 engine with a racing-derived three-carburettor set-up.

When Fritz Schlumpf learned of the model, he purchased it for his private collection in Mulhouse, Germany. And when the V12 stopped working, he simply had the motor removed and replaced with a Delahaye six-cylinder.

A few years later, Ed Andrews of Chicago purchased the car from the Schlumpfs, and then spent many years tracking down the original engine, which he did in 1970. It was finally reunited with the car in 1983, when Bill Jacobs Junior bought and restored the Delahaye, and it became part of the Mullin Collection in 2003, whereupon it was restored again.

We viewed the car up close at the wonderful Concours of Elegance in 2020.