A History of Concept Cars

Following our recent article on today’s concept cars and designers, Gijsbert-Paul Berk begins a new series of historical articles that will convey the history of dream and show cars and examine which concept cars or design studies influenced the shapes of our automobiles. Below, three interesting and legendary fashions that helped set styling trends.

By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

Breaking Away
Concept cars, dream cars, or show cars by any name are not by any means new. Historically, dream cars are outrageous, crowd-pleasers and often trend-setters. The story of the dream car begins in 1896 as the French made a concentrated effort to make the new motor car look less like ‘horseless carriages’. In general, the design and construction of automobile bodies was the work of coachbuilders, who only a few years before, had built the horse-drawn carriages. This similarity sometimes caused confusion and irritated a number of people.

This was one of the reasons why the well-known Parisian department store “Le Louvre” organized a competition for ideas for the coachwork of ‘modern’ motor cars in 1896. The contest was open to all kinds of artists such as painters and sculptors but also to architects and coachbuilders. The prizewinning entry was a scale model made from wax, cardboard and glass by Pierre Selmersheim, an architect and furniture designer. As can be seen from the competition, the Selmersheim design was fairly radical and advanced for the era. A photo of it was widely publicized in the French newspapers and European motoring magazines. But none of the many French coachbuilders was interested in building it.


These drawings are additional entries in the competition. It is easy to see why the Selmersheim design in the lead photo above, won.

During the early years of the motor car, it was customary that a chassis be brought to a coachbuilder to be fitted with its body, and the coachbuilders together with his client determined the styling fashion. Some of these coachbuilders created new trends or concepts which, with hindsight, can be considered as milestones in the evolution of automobile design. Because as they presented their latest creations at Motor Shows and Concours d’Elegance, these new trends got attention in the Motoring Press and were often copied by their colleagues and competitors. Thus most of the first ‘concept cars’ can be attributed to coachbuilders.

Four Forward

In 1902, a new style of open coachwork emerged in Europe. Initially called a ‘Tonneau de Grand Luxe’, it became more popularly known as the ‘Roi-des-Belges’ (King of the Belgians) body style. Its main characteristics: four well-upholstered seats, all viewing forward, to offer more comfort to the passengers. The design was the idea of the mistress of King Leopold.

Cleo in 1903.

The story is legendary but perhaps not all what it seems. As far as possible, we will try to set the record straight.

In August 1901 King Leopold of Belgium visited Paris. There, His Majesty met Fernand Charles, a designer for the coachbuilder De Rothschild & Fils. He invited Charles to the apartment of his friend Madame Cléo de Mérode where they could discuss the design of a body for a new Mercedes chassis he had bought. Cléo de Mérode was very beautiful, quite famous as the ‘première danseuse’ (prima ballerina) of the ballet of the Opéra in Paris and supposedly was the ‘amie intime’ of King Leopold II, who was almost 40 years her senior.

During their discussion, Madame de Mérode put two of the richly upholstered tub armchairs in the apartment next to each other, and suggested similar seats should be placed in the rear portion of the new body, both facing forwards.

At that time the tonneau bodies generally had two benches facing one another in the rear compartment (some, like the De Dietrich, had bench seats both facing forward). The King was captivated by the idea of his beautiful companion and ordered Charles to make some drawings, and in particular to copy the lines of backrests of the tulip-shaped chairs. In September 1901, His Majesty approved the design and instructed Charles to supervise its construction at De Rothschild & Fils. The car was delivered in April 1902. Its body was made of aluminum and a new lightweight alloy, called partinium. This was a new composition of aluminum and tungsten, developed and manufactured by Monsieur Henry Partin and also used in Jenatzy’s record-setting La Jamais Contente.

However, the dates and descriptions slightly differ from those found in the magazine articles from that era.

In its issue of April 20th 1901, The Autocar published a drawing of the new car for King Leopold, as delivered to him in Nice. “The body is of hammered aluminum, painted red, the frame being painted in Royal blue. The front splashers are of a new type, to so far as possible reduce the windage on the wings.” The car was equipped with wide and richly upholstered seats in red morocco leather. The left front seat was made extra wide to accommodate the King in comfort.

Alas, the illustration above shows clearly, that it did not have tulip-shaped rear panels. Secondly it was obviously a Tonneau with a rear entrance, and the chassis was not a Mercedes but a Panhard & Levassor.

Furthermore, the The Autocar of November 8th, 1902 carried this small but sad item: “It has been rumored that the King of the Belgians, had been ordered to cease motoring by his physicians. But however this may be, it is a fact that His majesty has just purchased three new cars. One is a Mercedes, which will be completed throughout at Cannstadt, and the other two are Mors cars, the bodies for which will be built in Paris”.

Then in June 1903, Car Illustrated published a photo of the fire damage at the Cannstadt factory and the ruins of the 90 HP Mercedes for the Belgium King.

Meanwhile in Car of June 4 1902, a Mr. Hugh Weguelin wrote that he was the original inventor of the modern Tonneau, as he had sent a drawing of such a body to Mr. Auscher of Rothschild & Fils, but failed to register it. He also mentioned that a few years earlier he had bought a high-backed Tonneau, designed by the Count de Périgord.

These amendments in no way diminish the historic value of what was one of the first bodies to be specifically designed for an automobile and ordered by a reigning Sovereign. As King Leopold II was already 65 years old in 1900 it is quite understandable that Mme. de Mérode insisted on the use of high-backed, thickly padded chairs, like those she had in her apartment. It is an endearing thought that she wanted her Royal friend to enjoy similar comfort in his new car.

One of the first Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts that successfully participated in the 1907 Scottish Reliability Trial had a Roi-des- Belges body made by the British coachbuilder Barker & Co. This car is now considered to be the most valuable Rolls-Royce in the world, valued at USD 57 million.

At De Rothschild & Fils they must have been grateful to her, because this made their coachwork visually stand out from other Tonneau bodies. The Roi-des-Belges style set a new standard for comfort and was indeed a milestone in the evolution of body design and, like today’s concept cars, it attracted a lot of publicity.

Boat-like Cars

Period photo and drawing of the first door-less Labourdette Skiff on a 2.1 liter Panhard & Levassor X19 chassis. Unfortunatly, the nice girl in the photo gave no demonstration how to get in or out of the car.

Over the years body designers and stylists have often been inspired by other means of transport, such as boats, airplanes, steam locomotives and spacecraft.

The French coachbuilder Jean-Henri Labourdette in 1912 launched a revolutionary new coachwork concept. The passenger compartment of his open torpedo body was built in the same way as the fast rowing boats, known as skiffs. Although at that time wooden bodies were not rare, this was a totally new approach in automobile coachwork construction.

This design was in fact an idea of the Chevalier René de Knyff, a well-known sportsman and a prominent figure in French society.

In 1912 de Knyff asked Jean-Henri Labourdette to build a new body. “I want a very, very light but comfortable torpedo offering the least wind resistance. You know that I enjoy rowing. Why don’t you build this body like my skiff, in mahogany and with thin rafters? It’s light and strong,” said De Knyff.

In full color, the Labourdette Skiff was impressive and sleek...the perfect dream car.

When Labourdette told him that these skiffs owed their rigidity to the fact that boats had no doors, de Knyff said, “Then build me a torpedo without doors”.
“But how will you get in?” Labourdette objected.
“One will step over the sides.”
“And the ladies?”
“Well, they will also step over. We will finally see their legs,” he laughed.

Construction detail of Labourdette's Skiff with the wooden rafters, ribs and the diagonal overlapping planking. The rear part of the cab, above the waistline, was made from one piece of Australian wattle wood that was formed by heating.

To acquire expertise Labourdette went to the naval yard of Despujols on the Ile de Jatte. “According to what I had seen there, I constructed the skiff body with triple overlapping layers of mahogany planking, riveted on a frame of ash. Between the second and third plies I placed a layer of canvas, to increase the rigidity. Since it was almost impossible to sketch the shape for the rear of the body, I decided to model it. This was, I think, the first time, that an automobile body form was studied, by modeling it in wax”.

The whole body, including four aluminum mudguards, windscreen and seats weighed only 180 kg. The Panhard-Levassor with the Labourdette Skiff body attracted huge crowds at the 1912 Paris Motor show.

Unfortunately getting in or out a skiff-bodied car was indeed rather a problem for the ladies. The fashion in those days prescribed wearing dresses and skirts covering the ankles. Most ladies refused to lift their skirts and show their legs to climb in a car, especially in the case of the wives and/or girlfriends of the wealthy men who could afford such a car. So this coachwork did not attract many buyers. Consequently later skiff’s had doors.

A Labourdette Skiff body (with two small doors!) on a 1912 Mercedes 37/90 HP chassis, powered by a four-cylinder engine of 9.5 liters that was designed by Paul Daimler. It produced about 60 HP at between 1100 and 1300 rpm. For this model Mercedes still used chain drive.

SOURCES:
InFrom Veteran to Vintage One of the authors is Laurence Pomeroy, also technical editor of the British car magazine The Motorand a respected and serious journalist. In the book Pomeroy quoted the pioneer motorist and amateur body designer Montague Grahame-White, who during early 20th century knew everybody in the inner circles of the French and British motor trade. He also wrote the entertaining book At the Wheel; Ashore and Afloat.