Lot n° 49
Estimation :
20000 - 25000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 20 400EUR
1931 RENAULT VIVASTELLA TYPE PG 5
Serial number 525 382
Unique example in the world
Bodywork by HIBBARD & DARRIN
French title
It was at the 1926 Motor Show that the new 15 HP Renault 6-cylinder (radiator at the rear of the engine) appeared for the first time. It can be considered as the originator of the range of six and eight-cylinder cars that were to become the Vivasix, Primastella, Nervastella and of course the Vivastella. But it is in 1930 with the change of place of the radiator that a new generation of cars is born with modern forms. Despite these fundamental changes, the names of these cars remain the same. On the Vivastella, each year brings its change in its body line, today it is hard to believe that its cars have the same name! From 1926 to 1929 Vivastella (type PG1-PG2) has its radiator at the rear of the engine, as well as on the PG3 and PG4 (1930). It is only from 1931 that the PG5 (1930- 1933) is modernized. It became the most remarkable and luxurious car in its class. The advertisement of the time stated "A new trapezoidal chassis, even more rigid and robust, makes its handling more perfect and has given it a new silhouette, with lower, very slender lines. Thanks to its interior dimensions, it offers 5 or 7 perfectly comfortable seats". The bodywork of the Vivastella and the variety of its accessories, classify this car as a truly complete quality car in its presentation as in its mechanical realization. Its appearance alone, with its new streamlined hood, designates it as a car of great class. "The ideal car for the city and for tourism".
Our example was acquired in 2010 by its current owner. It had belonged for more than 55 years to the family of an architect from Seine et Marne. Not surprising, considering its very particular bodywork, which awakens the senses of the aesthete of the drawing and the technique.
Although Carrosserie Hibbard & Darrin is based in Paris, France, it was founded by two Americans, financed by a third, and has sold nearly 50% of its bodies to American citizens. One of its founders, Thomas L. Hibbard, had previously founded the American body shop LeBaron Carrossiers.
The two men sailed to Paris in the spring of 1923 and, after examining the many business opportunities available to them, decided to stay in Europe and form a partnership to sell luxury cars in Paris. Hibbard & Darrin would open a design office in Paris and design bodies to be built in Brussels, then offer them to wealthy Europeans in their Minerva showroom.
Carrosserie Hibbard and Darrin rented a space right next to the Champs-Élysées, at 12 rue de Berri, just across the street from the showroom of Société Kellner Frères, one of the best-known coachbuilders in Paris. The couple designed some amazing bodies for two used Minerva chassis they had acquired, and asked two Belgian coachbuilders, including Van den Plas in Brussels, to build the body.
Although Hibbard and Darrin started out using Minerva chassis, they also built on other chassis, including Excelsior, Rolls-Royce and Isotta Fraschini. By 1926, the body shop represented the bulk of the company's business and the partners moved to a more prestigious showroom at 135 Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
With financing from W.G. Brokaw, Hibbard & Darrin built a factory in the courtyard of a sturdy apartment building on Rue de la République in the industrial commune of Puteaux, Seine, a western suburb of Paris.
The Hibbard & Darrin factory in Puteaux soon employed 100 people and produced bodies for some of the world's finest chassis, including Maybach, Renault, Mercedes-Benz, Hispano-Suiza, Packard, Stutz and Rolls-Royce.
The company became an agent for Rolls-Royce and became known as the firm's official body shop in Paris. The 20/25 hp chassis was never well accepted in Europe and Hibbard & Darrin bodied mainly 40/50 hp Phantom I's built by Derby. They also built a total of 35 bodies for the Rolls-Royce subsidiary in Springfield, Massachusetts, which were shipped to Brewster in white for use in Rolls-Royce's Custom Coach Work (RRCCW) program. Manhattan Hispano-Suiza dealer Clarke Pease was another good customer, and by early 1929 the Puteaux plant employed 200 people.
As was customary in Europe, Hibbard & Darrin rarely advertised, relying instead on its participation in Salons and Concours d'Elegance to obtain new contracts. Hibbard & Darrin was represented at the 1928 Paris Motor Show and every chassis bodied by Hibbard & Darrin was sold at the end of the show. Bill Black and Geo Ham (1929 only) were employed to create color illustrations for the company's corporate clients or for hard-to-please customers when Hibbard or Darrin were too busy. Things were going so well that they even rented a large residence just off the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, at 43 Avenue de Friedland, to house their administrative offices and design studio.
The company's greatest business asset is one of its founding partners, Howard A. Darrin. Darrin is an avid collector of antiques, a polo player, a World War I combat ace and an accomplished ladies' man. Within a few years, he became familiar with Parisian high society, bringing a steady stream of ex-patriotic Americans, tourists and wealthy Europeans into the company's showroom.
An unusual innovation by Hibbard & Darrin was the Victoria convertible with noise-reducing seats. At least three examples were built, the first on a Packard chassis, the second on a Bugatti, the third on a Renault. The cabin was equipped with sliding buckets in the front and bench seats in the rear, and a folding seat for two people, located at the very back of the body to leave as much legroom as possible. If all the seats were occupied in a weather emergency, the removable side window could be used to enclose exposed rear seat occupants. Hibbard recalls that the complex and expensive bodywork wasn't really worth it because they had trouble selling the three they built.
One useful automotive accessory popularized by Hibbard & Darrin is the polished aluminum wheel cover. Although the concept originated with Cornercroft Ltd. who introduced their patented Ace Super Discs in the mid-1920s, Hibbard & Darrin began producing them for their own use, then supplying them to body shops and luxury car dealerships throughout the continent, and even sold a few to Hibbard's old friend Hibard.
Hibbard & Darrin's wheel discs differed from the "Ace" discs in that they were attached to the wheel by means of a cast aluminum lock nut that was covered by a detachable, plated cover in the shape of a flattened hourglass. In addition to their obvious aesthetic qualities, these easy-to-clean discs allowed drivers to reduce the amount of time needed to maintain the wheels. Although the first discs were made of aluminum, manufacturers soon discovered that brass discs could be more easily plated and painted to match the bodywork. As a result, most early disc wheels were made of brass, although aluminum and even steel could be specified for some applications.
Some of Hibbard & Darrin's early bodies featured a molding that Hibbard had previously used at LeBaron that began with a 1" wide molding that widened along the hood. When it reached the hood, it split into two branches, the first crossing the hood just in front of the windshield, the second continuing along the side of the body until it wrapped around the rear of the body.
In the late 1920s, some of the firm's convertible coupes and Victorias began using a distinctive 3-inch-wide beltline molding that extended in a straight line from the radiator to the rear of the door, then dipped to follow the seam between the roof and body before rising and crossing the rear tonneau. It was often made from a sheet of polished aluminum, but when Darrin began working with Mr. Fernandez, he started making it from polished brass, which resulted in a very distinctive beltline molding not seen on other manufacturers' automobiles.
In 1928, Hibbard & Darrin introduced a new body structure made of aluminum castings that they called Sylentlyte - concocted from the words "quiet" and "light". Sylentlyte was a thin-walled aluminum casting system developed by William G. Brokaw and Thomas for automotive body construction. For a four-door convertible, 10 main Alpax castings were used to form the body structure, which was topped by a convertible top with hollow metal hoops instead of the heavier wooden hoops. The bodies of the four-door sedans used the 10 castings of the open car, combined with a separately cast roof that bolted to it. Alpax was an aluminum alloy used by the Montupet foundry that was widely used in France for pistons and other highly stressed aluminum castings.
Following the stock market crash of 1929, in the early months of 1931, the company closed and auctioned off its few remaining assets. The unfinished bodies were completed by Felber Freres, who also hired some of Hibbard & Darrin's best men. Hibbard and his partner, Howard A. "Dutch" Darrin, finally returned to the United States in 1931 where they continued their careers as two of the country's leading automotive designers.
Although Hibbard & Darrin produced as many as 500 bodies during its seven-year existence, very few survived. The majority of customers ordered town cars and chauffeur-driven limousines, bodies that were often abandoned in favor of open body styles when the surviving chassis were restored in the second half of the 20th century.
This is a unique opportunity to acquire one or perhaps the last of the cars bodied by Hibbard and Darrin, which is also the only Vivastella they bodied.
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