Darracq and Company London

A Darracq et Cie was sold 30 September 1902 to a newly created English firm, A Darracq and Company Limited. The attraction for the British venture capitalists was that French automobile technology and industry experience led the world. It was incorporated in England because French law made the necessary flotation processes more difficult than English law. The perception from across the Atlantic in USA was that French industry was "offloading" on British investors. The English financial group was headed by William Beilby Avery of W & T Avery, a Birmingham scales manufacturer, J S Smith-Winby a London lawyer and a retired army officer, Colonel A Rawlinson. They bought A Darracq et Cie and selling it to other investors for five times their purchase price. Darracq received slightly less than 50 percent of the shares in the new company. There was no public offering, eight other investors took up the rest of the shares. Further capital was raised and large sums were spent on factory expansion. The Suresnes site was expanded to some four acres, and in England extensive premises were bought. The Darracq & Co automobile company prospered, such that, by 1903, four models were offered: a 1.1-litre single, a 1.3 L and 1.9 L twin, and a 3.8 L four. The 1904 models abandoned flitch-plated wood chassis for pressed steel, and the new Flying Fifteen, powered by a 3-litre four, had its chassis made from a single sheet of steel. This car was Alexandre Darracq's ''chef d'oeuvre''. There was nothing outstanding in its design but "every part was in such perfect balance and harmony" it became an outstanding model. Almost 75 per cent of 1904 output was exported. The "reconstitution" was to circumvent some holders of the company's shares who were unwilling to share the prosperity and blocked proposed new issues. So the company was (technically) sold, they were paid out and obliged to buy new shares like anyone else. J S Smith-Winby continued as chairman. After this restructure over 80 per cent of the shares were held in England. Alexandre Darracq had long been interested in heavy vehicles for the carriage of people and the transport of goods. On his advice the company entered into a joint venture with Léon Serpollet in 1905 to build steam-powered buses. A new factory was built at Suresnes capable of making one hundred chassis each month but the buses were not successful and in 1910 the directors had to tell their shareholders they had written off £156,000 of investment in heavy steam vehicles. Returning to an 1898 idea by M. Darracq to build low-cost, good-quality cars, much as Henry Ford was doing with the Ford Model T, Darracq & Co introduced a £260 model at the very end of 1911. These, at the founder's insistence, would all be cursed with the Henriod rotary valve engine, which was underpowered and prone to seizing. was sent to Suresnes from Rover in Coventry and appointed works manager. At the end of 1912, the chairman reassured shareholders a return on their investment in the valveless motor would arrive in 1913. By February 1913, shareholders had set up their own inquiry into the unsatisfactory position of the business and it reported poor co-operation between London and Suresnes, they had been pulling against each other, furthermore there had been considerable loss through "recent changes in personnel". The committee then went on record saying: :"M. Darracq, as a typical Frenchman, probably possessed far more originality and initiative than any Englishman of corresponding situation, but, if he displayed a failing, it was that he, like most of his brilliant race, lacked the Englishman's pertinacity, and, after a time, seemed to lose interest, as it were, in his original conceptions without making any serious effort to strike out a fresh line." Norman Craig The chairman of the investigating committee, Norman Craig, was appointed chairman of Darracq & Company. Suresnes land and buildings were transferred to Darracq Proprietary Company Limited of London and leased back to SA Darracq. Acquisitions In the wake of WWI Darracq & Company went on a buying spree, mainly of automobile-related companies. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, it bought Heenan & Froude, constructional engineers, of Worcester and Manchester. At the end of 1919 Darracq & Co bought Clément-Talbot. In early 1920 Jonas Woodhead & Sons of Leeds, suppliers of springs for cars, was acquired. In June 1920 Darracq & Company they bought control of Sunbeam Motor Car Company. In August W & G Du Cros of Acton, taxi operators and van, lorry, bus and ambulance body builders, was purchased. ==S.T.D. Motors Limited==