Vanderbilt Cup
The Vanderbilt Cup was the first major trophy in American auto racing. An international event, it was founded by William Kissam Vanderbilt II in 1904 and first held on October 8 on a course set out in Nassau County on Long Island, New York; the announcement that the race was to be held caused considerable controversy in New York, bringing a flood of legal actions in an attempt to stop the race. The politicians soon jumped in. Vanderbilt prevailed and the inaugural race was run over a 30.24 miles course of winding dirt roads through the Nassau County area. Vanderbilt put up a large cash prize hoping to encourage American manufacturers to get into racing, a sport well organized in Europe, yielding many factory improvements to motor vehicle technology; the race drew the top drivers and their vehicles from across the Atlantic Ocean, some of whom had competed in Europe's Gordon Bennett Cup. The first Long Island race featured seventeen vehicles and the newspaper and poster art promotion drew large crowds hoping to see an American car defeat the mighty European vehicles.
However, George Heath won the race in a Panhard and another French vehicle, a Darracq, took the Cup the next two years straight. Crowd control was a problem from the start and after a spectator, Curt Gruner, was killed in 1906, the race was cancelled. Meanwhile, in France, the first Grand Prix motor racing event had been run on June 26, 1906, under the auspices of the Automobile Club de France in Le Mans. One of the competitors was American Elliot Shepard, the son of Margaret Vanderbilt-Shepard and a cousin of William Kissam Vanderbilt. Learning from his cousin about the success of the French Grand Prix and the rapid expansion of Grand Prix racing in other European countries, William Vanderbilt conceived a way to solve the safety issue as well as improve attendance to his race. Vanderbilt formed a company to build the Long Island Motor Parkway, one of the country's first modern paved parkways that could not only be used for the race but would open up Long Island for easy access and economic development.
Construction began in 1907 of the multimillion-dollar toll highway, to run from the Kissena Corridor in Queens County over numerous bridges and overpasses to Lake Ronkonkoma, a distance of 48 miles. The 1908 race was held over parts of the new highway and much to the delight of the large crowd on hand, 23-year-old local hero George Robertson from Garden City, New York became the first American to win the event driving the American Locomobile, the company's first gas-powered car and designed by famed engineer Andrew L. Riker; the Vanderbilt Cup was held on Long Island until 1911 when it was showcased at Savannah, Georgia in combination with the American Grand Prize. The next year it moved to a racecourse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for three years in California: Santa Monica in 1914 and 1916, San Francisco in 1915; the race was canceled after the United States joined the Allies in World War I in 1917. Some of the drivers who participated in the Vanderbilt Cup became famous names, synonymous with automobiles and racing such as Louis Chevrolet, Vincenzo Lancia and Ralph DePalma.
The Vanderbilt Cup was not held again until 1936 when William Kissam Vanderbilt II's nephew, George Washington Vanderbilt III picked up the cause and sponsored a 300-mile race at the new facilities at Roosevelt Raceway. Once again, the Europeans were enticed by the substantial prize money and Scuderia Ferrari entered three Alfa Romeo racers. A lack of American competition and a less-than-exciting course layout saw the race run for only two years, both won by Europeans; the Vanderbilt Cup would not return to the United States motor racing scene for more than twenty years. In 1960, sponsored by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, it was run as a Formula Junior event and held again at Roosevelt Raceway. In 1965, 1967, 1968, the Bridgehampton Sports Car Races were billed as the Vanderbilt Cup; the original Cup is cast of silver and measures 2.5 feet in height. It bears the image of William K. Vanderbilt II driving his record-setting Mercedes at the Daytona Beach Road Course in 1904; the trophy today is stored at a Smithsonian Institution storage facility and is not available to be seen by the public.
The George Vanderbilt Cup is on display at Museo Nicolis in Verona. ^A The 1966 event was billed as the "Bridgehampton 200". The Vanderbilt Cup name disappeared for another 36 years until 1996. In recognition of William Kissam Vanderbilt's place in automotive racing history, a copy of the original cup was created as the trophy for the CART U. S. 500 race. In 2000, CART designated the Vanderbilt Cup as its series championship trophy. Names of U. S. 500 winners from 1996–99 and the CART series winners since 2000, are etched into the new Cup. With the bankruptcy of Champ Car and purchase of the assets by the IRL, Tony George has mentioned interest in using the Vanderbilt Cup as the Series Championship Trophy for the IndyCar Series. However, the Astor Cup has been used since the 2011 season. Vanderbilt Cup Race Series - EMRA - EASTERN MOTOR RACING ASSOCIATION - Owners of the "Vanderbilt Cup" service mark Vanderbilt Cup Races 22 October 1904. Cup Contest
Scuderia Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari S.p. A. is the racing division of luxury Italian auto manufacturer Ferrari and the racing team that competes in Formula One racing. The team is nicknamed "The Prancing Horse", with reference to their logo, it is the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team, having competed in every world championship since the 1950 Formula One season. The team was founded by Enzo Ferrari to race cars produced by Alfa Romeo, though by 1947 Ferrari had begun building its own cars. Among its important achievements outside Formula One are winning the World Sportscar Championship, 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Spa, 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, Bathurst 12 Hour, races for Grand tourer cars and racing on road courses of the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia and the Carrera Panamericana; as a constructor, Ferrari has a record 16 Constructors' Championships, the last of, won in 2008. Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen have won a record 15 Drivers' Championships for the team.
Since Räikkönen's title in 2007 the team narrowly lost out on the 2008 drivers' title with Felipe Massa and the 2010 and 2012 drivers' titles with Fernando Alonso. Michael Schumacher is the team's most successful driver. Joining the team in 1996 and departing in 2006 he won five drivers' titles and 72 Grands Prix for the team, his titles came consecutively between 2000 and 2004, the team won consecutive constructors' title from 1999 until the end of 2004. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc are the two main race drivers; the team is known for its passionate support base known as the tifosi. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza is regarded as the team's home race; the Scuderia Ferrari team was founded by Enzo Ferrari on 16 November 1929 and became the racing team of Alfa Romeo and racing Alfa Romeo cars. In 1938, Alfa Romeo management made the decision to re-enter racing under its own name, establishing the Alfa Corse organisation, which absorbed what had been Scuderia Ferrari. Enzo Ferrari disagreed with this change in policy and was dismissed by Alfa in 1939.
The terms of his leaving forbade him from motorsport for a period of four years. In 1939, Ferrari started work on a racecar of his own, the Tipo 815; the 815s, designed by Alberto Massimino, were thus the first Ferrari cars. World War II put a temporary end to racing, Ferrari concentrated on an alternative use for his factory during the war years, doing machine tool work. After the war, Ferrari recruited several of his former Alfa colleagues and established a new Scuderia Ferrari, which would design and build its own cars; the team was based in Modena from its pre-war founding until 1943, when Enzo Ferrari moved the team to a new factory in Maranello in 1943, both Scuderia Ferrari and Ferrari's roadcar factory remain at Maranello to this day. The team owns and operates a test track on the same site, the Fiorano Circuit built in 1972, used for testing road and race cars; the team is named after Enzo Ferrari. Scuderia is Italian for a stable reserved for racing horses and is commonly applied to Italian motor racing teams.
The prancing horse was the symbol on Italian World War I ace Francesco Baracca's fighter plane, became the logo of Ferrari after the fallen ace's parents, close acquaintances of Enzo Ferrari, suggested that Ferrari use the symbol as the logo of the Scuderia, telling him it would'bring him good luck'. In May 1947, Ferrari constructed the 12-cylinder, 1.5 L Tipo 125, the first racing car to bear the Ferrari name. A Formula One version of the Tipo 125, the Ferrari 125 F1 was developed in 1948 and entered in several Grands Prix, at the time a World Championship had not yet been established. In 1950, the Formula One World Championship was established, Scuderia Ferrari entered in this first season, it is the only team to have competed in every season of the World Championship, from its inception to the current day. In fact the Ferrari team missed the first race of the championship, the 1950 British Grand Prix, due to a dispute about the'start money' paid to entrants, the team debuted in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix with the 125 F1, sporting a supercharged version of the 125 V12, three experienced and successful drivers, Alberto Ascari, Raymond Sommer and Gigi Villoresi.
The company switched to the large-displacement aspirated formula for the 275, 340, 375 F1 cars. The Alfa Romeo team dominated the 1950 Formula One season, winning all eleven events it entered, but Ferrari broke their streak in 1951 when rotund driver José Froilán González took first place at the 1951 British Grand Prix. After the 1951 Formula One season the Alfa team withdrew from F1, causing the authorities to adopt the Formula Two regulations due to the lack of suitable F1 cars. Ferrari entered the 2.0 L 4-cyl Ferrari Tipo 500, which went on to win every race in which it competed in the 1952 Formula One season with drivers Ascari, Giuseppe Farina, Piero Taruffi. In the 1953 Formula One season, Ascari won only five races but another world title; the 1954 Formula One season brought new rules for 2.5 L engines. Ferrari had only two wins, González at the 1954 British Grand Prix and Mike Hawthorn a
Jean-Pierre Wimille
Jean-Pierre Wimille was a Grand Prix motor racing driver and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. Born in Paris, France to a father who loved motor sports and was employed as the motoring correspondent for the Petit Parisien newspaper, Jean-Pierre Wimille developed a fascination with racing cars at a young age, he was 22 years old when he made his Grand Prix debut, driving a Bugatti 37A at the 1930 French Grand Prix in Pau. Driving a Bugatti T51, in 1932 he won the La Turbie hill climb, the Grand Prix de Lorraine and the Grand Prix d'Oran. In 1934 he was the victor at the Algerian Grand Prix in Algiers driving a Bugatti T59 and in January 1936 he finished second in the South African Grand Prix held at the Prince George Circuit in East London, South Africa won the French Grand Prix in his home country. Still in France, that same year he won the Deauville Grand Prix, a race held on the city's streets. Wimille won in his Bugatti T59 in an accident-marred race that killed drivers Raymond Chambost and Marcel Lehoux in separate incidents.
Of the 16 cars that started the race, only three managed to finish. In 1936, Wimille traveled to Long Island, New York to compete in the Vanderbilt Cup where he finished 2nd, behind the winner, Tazio Nuvolari, he competed in the 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race, winning in 1937 and again in 1939. When World War II came, following the Nazi occupation Wimille and fellow Grand Prix race drivers Robert Benoist and William Grover-Williams joined the Special Operations Executive, which aided the French Resistance. Of the three, Wimille was the only one to survive. Jean-Pierre Wimille married Christiane de la Fressange with whom he had a son, François born in 1946. At the end of the War, he became the No. 1 driver for the Alfa Romeo team between 1946 and 1948, winning several Grand Prix races including his second French Grand Prix. From 1946 on, Wimille designed cars in Paris under the brand-name Wimille. Between 1946 and 1950 around eight cars were built, at first with Citroën-engines with Ford V8-engines.
Jean-Pierre Wimille died at the wheel of Simca-Gordini during practice runs for the 1949 Buenos Aires Grand Prix. He is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris. There is a memorial to him at the Porte Dauphine on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris; some of Jean-Pierre Wimille's race victories: 1932: Grand Prix de Lorraine Grand Prix d'Oran1934: Grand Prix of Algeria – Bugatti T591936: French Grand Prix – Bugatti T57G Grand Prix de la Marne – Bugatti T57G Deauville Grand Prix – Bugatti T59 Grand Prix du Comminges – Bugatti T59/571937: Pau Grand Prix – Bugatti T57G Grand Prix de Böne – Bugatti T57 24 hours of Le Mans – Bugatti T57G driving with Robert Benoist Grand Prix de la Marne – Bugatti T571939: Coupe de Paris Grand Prix du Centenaire Luxembourg – Bugatti T57S45 24 hours of Le Mans – Bugatti T57C driving with Pierre VeyronPost War – 1945: Coupe des Prisonniers – Bugatti sprint car1946: Coupe de la Résistance – Alfa Romeo 308 Grand Prix du Roussillon – Alfa Romeo 308 Grand Prix de Bourgogne – Alfa Romeo 308 Grand Prix des Nations – Geneva – Alfa Romeo 1581947: Swiss Grand Prix – Alfa Romeo 158 Belgian Grand Prix – Alfa Romeo 158 Coupe de Paris1948: Grand Prix de Rosario – Simca- Gordini 15 French Grand Prix – Alfa Romeo 158 Italian Grand Prix – Alfa Romeo 158 Autodrome Grand Prix – Alfa Romeo 158/47 Paris, Jean-Michel and Mearns, William D: "Jean-Pierre Wimille: à bientôt la revanche", Editions Drivers, Toulouse, 2002, ISBN 2-9516357-5-3 Saward, Joe: "The Grand Prix Saboteurs", Morienval Press, London, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9554868-0-7 Grand Prix History – Hall of Fame, Jean-Pierre Wimille Jean-Pierre Wimille grave photos at Cimetière de Passy
Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 9.6 kilometres from the centre of Paris. Like other communes of Hauts-de-Seine such as Marnes-la-Coquette, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Vaucresson, Saint-Cloud is one of the wealthiest towns in France, ranked second in average household income among communities with 10- to 50-thousand tax households. In 2006, it had a population of 29,981; the town is named after Clodoald, grandson of Clovis, supposed to have sought refuge in a hamlet on the Seine near Paris named Novigentum, like many other newly founded mercantile settlements outside the traditional towns. After he was canonized, the village where his tomb was located took the name of Sanctus Clodoaldus. A park contains the ruins of the Château de Saint-Cloud, built in 1572 and destroyed by fire in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War; the château was the residence of several French rulers and served as the main country residence of the cadet Orléans line prior to the French Revolution.
The palace was the site of the coup d'état led by Napoleon Bonaparte that overthrew the French Directory in 1799. The town is famous for the Saint-Cloud porcelain produced there from 1693 to 1766; the Headquarters of the International Criminal Police Organization had been located at 22 Rue Armengaud from 1966 until 1989, when it moved to Lyon. The main landmarks are the park of the demolished Château de Saint-Cloud and the Pavillon de Breteuil; the Saint-Cloud Racecourse, a race track for Thoroughbred flat racing, was built by Edmond Blanc in 1901 and is host to a number of important races including the annual Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. On the Avenue de Longchamp, in Saint-Cloud, there is a bronze statue commissioned by the Airclub of France representing the Greek god Icarus, in honour of Santos Dumont; the monument was inaugurated on October 19, 1913, is located on a square near the old Aerostation of Saint-Cloud, where Santos Dumont performed his experiments with the heavier than air. Dumont was responsible for the construction of the first hangar in the world in Saint-Cloud.
Today there is a replica of it, in the same place, erected in 1952, because the original was destroyed to for its bronze during the Nazi military occupation. Saint-Cloud is served by two stations on the Transilien La Défense and Transilien Paris – Saint-Lazare suburban rail lines: Le Val d'Or and Saint-Cloud; the town is served by a number of stops on the T2 Tramway, which runs along the side of the Seine. Central Saint-Cloud, known as le village, is served by the metro station'Boulogne-Pont de Saint-Cloud', located across the Seine river on the Boulogne-Billancourt side of the Pont de Saint Cloud. Public high schools: Lycée Alexandre-Dumas Lycée Santos-DumontIt is served by the public high school Lycée Jean Pierre Vernant in Sèvres. Private high schools: Institution Saint-Pie-XInternational schools: American School of Paris Internationale Deutsche Schule Paris Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France from 1715 to 1723 Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans Regent of Lorraine, lived at the Palace at Saint-Cloud Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, a key figure during the early stages of the French Revolution.
Napoléon Ier – lived in the Château de Saint-Cloud Antoine Sénard – member of the National Assembly, mayor of Saint-Cloud from 1871 to 1874 Émile Verhaeren – Flemish poet André Chevrillon – French author Florent Schmitt – French composer Maurice Ravel – French composer Marcel Dassault – French businessman and politician Santos Dumont – Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer Lino Ventura – Italian actor and died in Saint-Cloud Jean-Pierre Fourcade – French Minister, mayor of Saint-Cloud from 1971 to 1992 Gérard Holtz, French sports journalist Jean-Marie Le Pen, French politician, owner of Domaine de Montretout in Saint-Cloud. Edmond Blanc René Alexandre Maurice Bessy Gérard Blain Gilbert Grandval Fernand Gravey Jean-René Huguenin Dorothy Jordan Vlado Perlemuter Andrée Servilange Jean Toulout Maurice Yvain Saint-Cloud is twinned with: Frascati, Italy Bad Godesberg, Germany Kortrijk, Belgium Maidenhead, United Kingdom Saint-Cloud is the main setting of the 1955 French film Les Diaboliques.
Communes of the Hauts-de-Seine department INSEE "St Cloud, a town of northern France". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911
Grand Prix motor racing
Grand Prix motor racing, a form of motorsport competition, has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as early as 1894. It evolved from simple road races from one town to the next, to endurance tests for car and driver. Innovation and the drive of competition soon saw speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, but because early races took place on open roads, accidents occurred resulting in deaths both of drivers and of spectators. Grand Prix motor racing evolved into formula racing, one can regard Formula One as its direct descendant; each event of the Formula One World Championships is still called a Grand Prix. Motor racing was started in France, as a direct result of the enthusiasm with which the French public embraced the motor car. Manufacturers were enthusiastic due to the possibility of using motor racing as a shop window for their cars; the first motoring contest took place on July 22, 1894 and was organised by a Paris newspaper, Le Petit Journal. The Paris–Rouen rally was 126 km, from Porte Maillot in Paris, through the Bois de Boulogne, to Rouen.
Count Jules-Albert de Dion was first into Rouen after 6 hours 48 minutes at an average speed of 19 km/h. He finished 3 minutes 30 seconds ahead of Albert Lemaître, followed by Auguste Doriot, René Panhard, Émile Levassor; the official winners were Peugeot and Panhard as cars were judged on their speed and safety characteristics, De Dion's steam car needed a stoker which the judges deemed to be outside of their objectives. In 1900, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. the owner of the New York Herald and the International Herald Tribune, established the Gordon Bennett Cup. He hoped the creation of an international event would drive automobile manufacturers to improve their cars; each country was allowed to enter up to three cars, which had to be built in the country that they represented and entered by that country's automotive governing body. International racing colours were established in this event; the 1903 event occurred in the aftermath of the fatalities at the Paris-Madrid road race, so the race, at Athy in Ireland, though on public roads, was run over a closed circuit: the first closed-circuit motor race.
In the United States, William Kissam Vanderbilt II launched the Vanderbilt Cup at Long Island, New York in 1904. Some anglophone sources wrongly list a race called the Pau Grand Prix in 1901; this may stem from a mistranslation of the contemporary French sources such as the magazine La France Auto of March 1901. The name of the 1901 event was the Circuit du Sud-Ouest and it was run in three classes around the streets of Pau; the Grand Prix du Palais d'Hiver was the name of the prizes awarded for the lesser classes. The Grand Prix de Pau was the name of the prize awarded for the'Heavy' class, thus Maurice Farman was awarded the'Grand Prix de Pau' for his overall victory in the Circuit du Sud-Ouest driving a Panhard 24 hp. In L'Histoire de l'Automobile/Paris 1907 Pierre Souvestre described the 1901 event as: "... dans le Circuit du Sud-Ouest, à l'occasion du meeting de Pau... " The only race at the time to carry the name Grand Prix was organised by the Automobile Club de France, of which the first took place in 1906.
The circuit used, based in Le Mans, was triangular in shape, each lap covering 105 kilometres. Six laps were to run each day, each lap took an hour using the primitive cars of the day; the driving force behind the decision to race on a circuit - as opposed to racing on ordinary roads from town to town - was the Paris to Madrid road race of 1903. During this race a number of people, both drivers and pedestrians - including Marcel Renault - were killed and the race was stopped by the French authorities at Bordeaux. Further road based events were banned. From the 32 entries representing 12 different automobile manufacturers, at the 1906 event, the Hungarian-born Ferenc Szisz won the 1,260 km race in a Renault; this race was regarded as the first Grande Épreuve, which meant "great trial" and the term was used from on to denote up to the eight most important events of the year. Races in this period were nationalistic affairs, with a few countries setting up races of their own, but no formal championship tying them together.
The rules varied from country to country and race to race, centered on maximum weights in an effort to limit power by limiting engine size indirectly. The cars all had mechanics on board as well as the driver, no one was allowed to work on the cars during the race except for these two. A key factor to Renault winning this first Grand Prix was held to be the detachable wheel rims, which allowed tire changes to occur without having to lever the tire and tube off and back on the rim. Given the state of the roads, such repairs were frequent. A further historic confusion arose in the early 1920s when the Automobile Club de France attempted to pull off a retrospective political trick by numbering and renaming the major races held in France before the 1906 French Grand Prix as being Grands Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, despite their running pre-dating the formation of the Club. Hence, the 1895 Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail was renamed I Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France.
Departments of France
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France, five are overseas departments, which are classified as regions. Departments are further subdivided into 334 arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons; each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils; each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school buildings and technical staff, local roads and school and rural buses, a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; the departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity.
All of them were named after physical geographical features, rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The division of France into departments was a project identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès, although it had been discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers; the earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of d'Argenson. They have inspired similar divisions in some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the "Official Geographical Code", allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. Overseas departments have a three-digit number; the number is used, for example, in the postal code, was until used for all vehicle registration plates. While residents use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, more distant departments are referred to by their names, as few people know the numbers of all the departments.
For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as "the 45". In 2014, President François Hollande proposed to abolish departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, to transfer their powers to other levels of governance; this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution, France gained territory through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces. During the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved in order to weaken old loyalties; the modern departments, as all-purpose units of the government, were created on 4 March 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly to replace the provinces with what the Assembly deemed a more rational structure.
Their boundaries served two purposes: Boundaries were chosen to break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a day's ride of the capital of a department; this was a security measure, intended to keep the entire national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of many rural areas far from any centre of government; the old nomenclature was avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after other physical features. Paris was in the department of Seine. Savoy became the department of Mont-Blanc; the number of departments 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814–1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86.
In 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department; the 89 departments were given numbers based on the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of Haut-Rhin became known as the Territoire de Belfort; when France regained the ceded departments after World War I, the Territoire de Belfort was not re-integrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922, it became France's 90th department; the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, a new Moselle department was created in the regaine
Chrysler Imperial
The Chrysler Imperial, introduced in 1926, was Chrysler's top-of-the-line vehicle for much of its history. Models were produced with the Chrysler name until 1954, again from 1990 to 1993; the company positioned the cars as a prestige marque to rival Cadillac, Lincoln, Pierce Arrow and Packard. According to Antique Automobile, "The adjective ‘imperial’ according to Webster's Dictionary means sovereign, superior or of unusual size or excellence; the word imperial thus justly befits Chrysler's highest priced model." In 1926, Walter P. Chrysler decided to compete with North American marques Cadillac, Packard, Pierce Arrow and Duesenberg in the luxury car field. Chrysler offered a variety of body styles: a two/four-passenger roadster, a four-seat coupé, five-passenger sedan and phaeton, a seven-passenger top-of-the-line limousine; the limo had a glass partition between the rear passenger compartments. The Imperial's new engine was larger than the company's standard straight 6, it was a 288.6 cu in six-cylinder with seven bearing blocks and pressure lubrication of 92 brake horsepower.
Springs were semi-elliptic in the front. The car set a transcontinental speed record in the year it was introduced, driving more than 6,500 miles in the week; the car was chosen as the pace car for the 1926 Indianapolis 500. The model was designated E-80, the 80 being after the "guaranteed" 80 miles per hour all-day cruising speed. Acceleration was brisk, breaking 20 seconds to 60 miles per hour. Four-speed transmission was added in 1930; the attention to luxury and multiple bodystyles was a similar approach to one Mr. Chrysler used as president of the Buick Motor Company, his employer from 1911 to 1919; when the second generation Imperial was introduced in 1931, the first generation was given minor updates and was called the Chrysler Six. In 1920, Mr. Chrysler, working at the request of the bankers to make Willys profitable, had auto engineers Owen Skelton, Carl Breer, Fred Zeder begin work on a new car for Willys, referred to as the Chrysler Six; when Willys encountered financial problems, Walter Chrysler and the three engineers, working on the Chrysler Six all moved on to Maxwell-Chalmers where they continued their work launching the six-cylinder Chrysler in January 1924.
The Chrysler Imperial was redesigned in 1931. The car received a new 384.84-cubic inch straight-eight engine. Marketing materials for this generation of Imperial referred to the car as the "Imperial 8", in reference to the new in-line 8-cylinder engine; the engine would be found in many other Chrysler vehicles. The Imperial Custom had rust-proof fenders, automatic heater control, safety glass; the limo came with a Dictaphone. The redesign saw the introduction of new wire wheels that became a standard wheel treatment until the 1940s. Stock car driver Harry Hartz set numerous speed records with an Imperial sedan at Daytona Beach, Florida, it was introduced shortly after the Rolls-Royce Phantom II, Mercedes-Benz 770, Packard Eight, Duesenberg Model J, Cadillac Series 355, Lincoln K-series appeared in the 1930s. The 1934 to 1936 Chrysler Imperial ushered in the'Airflow' design, reflecting an interest in streamlining; the car was marketed with the slogan "The car of tomorrow is here today." It featured eight-passenger seating and again an eight-cylinder engine.
It was the first car to be designed in a wind tunnel. Initial tests indicated that the standard car of the 1920s worked best in the wind-tunnel when pointed backwards with the curved rear deck facing forward, it led to a rethinking of the fundamental design of Chrysler's cars. The Airflow was an exceptionally modern and advanced car, an unparalleled engineering success. Both engine and passenger compartment were moved forward, giving better ride. An early form of unibody construction was employed, making them strong, it was one of the first vehicles with fender skirts. The public did not buy the car in large numbers; the failure of the Airflow cars in the marketplace led Chrysler to be overly conservative in their styling for the next 20 years. The "standard" styling on the lower-end Chryslers outsold the Airflow by 3 to 1, its appearance was similar to the unrelated Tatra 77 which appeared in the mid-1930s with a similar reaction to styling. Innovations for 1937 included built-in defroster vents, safety-type interior hardware, seat-back padding, insulated engine mounts.
Brakes were 13-inch drums in 1939 they expanded to 14 inches, but shrunk to 12-inch drums in 1940. Front suspension was independent. There were three Imperial models in this generation; the C-14 was the standard eight and looked much like the Chrysler Royal C-18 with a longer hood and cowl. The C-15 was the Town Sedan Limousine, with blind rear quarter panels; this model was available by special order. The third model, C-17, was the designation for the Airflow model, they had a concealed crank for raising the windshield and the hood was hinged at the cowl and opened from the front. An Imperial Custom convertible sedan was used as an official car at the Indy 500; the car pictured is J. G. Martin's 1939 C-24 7-passenger limousine, believed by him and his son Tim to be the only 1939 production 7-passenger limo still on the road. Following an assassination attempt in 1937, an armoured Chrysler Imperial was purchased as the official car for An
French
Luigi Chinetti
Prince Bira
Luigi Chinetti
Dorino Serafini
