Back-to-back: Teardrop or Honeymoon Express?

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Much ado about the Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS Teardrop that will be offered for sale during the Amelia Island Concours. Of course. This is, and always has been, the quintessential concours car. And it’s an exceptional one, too. Although this 1937 car was repainted several times, it survives with its original coachwork intact and is still just about how it was when it first left Figoni & Falaschi. Its life in the spotlight started on 24 June 1938, snapping up the Prix d’Excéllence at the Concours d’Elégance Fémina in Paris. But it came to a halt later when its third owner locked it away for almost four decades, thus preserving it (unlike most of the others). It was then donated (!), fully restored, and caught up on the showbiz life once again in 2005.

Yes, it’s extraordinary, yes, it’s quite fantastic and yes, it’s a piece of automotive art. But, it’s also perhaps a caricature of the concours car itself, if such a thing exists, and so perhaps no real surprise on the manicured lawns of the global prestige-events.

1937 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS Teardrop Coupé vs. 1939 Bentley 4¼-litre Sports Coupé

One car that did astonish us quite a lot more than the Teardrop was another Art-Deco-style coupé from the same era: a Bentley 4¼-litre Sports Coupé known as ‘The Honeymoon Express’. That moniker was given to it because of its two-seat configuration, with an open area behind the seats for luggage and a power-activated rear window privacy shade. We must apologise for this huge omission but we’d honestly never seen this gem before. The car was bodied by Park Ward for display at the 1938 Earls Court Motor Show and simply looks fantastic in its understated elegance and that deep-maroon hue. Other than the Talbot-Lago, this is a car that can be used on the roads without stopping all the other traffic, while we can also see it just as easily picking up Best of Show anywhere.

It has a good history, too. The chairman of Park Ward (Park or Ward, we don’t know) used the car as his personal transport for some time before passing it on to a London Rolls-Royce dealer who had it repainted in camouflage colours during WW2. It went Stateside in the 1960s and remained in the same Californian hands until 2002. A seven-year restoration to its Earl Court splendour followed in the UK and it was driven from Monte Carlo to Venice in 2012 before going back to the US. "Accompanying the car are a tool roll, original owner’s manual, and hundreds of fascinating documents, receipts, photographs, and original letters from Charles Ward, Johnnie Green, and Jules Heuman." All we can add to that is: wow!

Words Jeroen Booij. All images copyright and courtesy of Gooding & Company.

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