From racer to road car: the roaring Lion of Sochaux

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You will know Fiat’s famous S76 ‘Beast of Turin’, the wild car with a 290 bhp, 28-litre, four-cylinder engine, built to beat the 1910 land speed record, but did you know France had an equally wacky racer in the shape of the Lion-Peugeots of around the same time?

Available information about these cars seems somewhat confusing and contradictory, and no original survivors are known, but at least this evocative picture turned up not too long ago in the Archives de la Somme with the following information: “Automobile de course immatricilée "1278-C". Circuit de Picardie à Boves”—"competition car with the registration 1278-C, at the Picardie racing track in Boves”. As far as we could find out, this closed road racing circuit was used only in 1913 for that year’s Grand Prix de l’ACF, run by its namesake, the Automobile Club de France.

Although we don't know for sure if this car raced during the event, it has to be one of the works Lion-Peugeot racers. They came with mad long-stroke, 24-valve V4 engines of 3½- or even 5.6-litre capacity. That’s why the bonnet is so extremely tall—the engine’s cylinders are very, very long in order to get as much capacity from a four-cylinder as possible. The racing organisations scratched their heads when these cars made it to the French circuits in 1910 and rapidly changed the rules for the 1911 season, or so we understand.

It therefore seems unlikely that this car was still in use as a works racer in 1913. Could it have been brought along by a privateer who’d taken it over from the factory, road-registered it and come to watch the Grand Prix?

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Archives de la Somme
 

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