Quiz Archive

About Quiz #217 Michel Irat (UPDATE: TE4 not TD4)

The diagonal on the grille of last week’s quiz car had most of you fooled. It wasn’t a Volvo, although the Swedish cars did have (and still do) a similar strip. Not surprisingly most answers came from France as this was a true French car. But those of you who mentioned Georges Irat were close, very close, but still wrong. Christophe Mouchoux found this rare make on a scrap yard somewhere in France. It is a Michel Irat, built from 1928 until 1930. Georges Irat bought the Chaigneau-Brasier company and changed its name to that of his son Michel, who had designed the engine. Only four of you, Aurelie Charlot, Laurent Clémentine, Michel Piat and J.W. van der Krol had the make, model and year correct. But as you know we fall for the little extra bits, the choice of the winner was an easy one, as her answer was more complete than the others. She wrote: “This is a 1929 Michel Irat CB2. This car is in fact the old Chaigneau-Brasier TD-4 with only one modification: a new 1086cm3 engine.” Congratulations Aurelie! The T-shirt will find its way to France.
P.S. there will be no quiz next week, on the second day of Christmas we will start a 6-day long quiz to help you welcome the New Year.

Update by Yves-Richard Chaignon who tells us that the Michel Irat engine is a Chaigneau-Brasier TE 4 and not a TD 4 which is 1452 cm3

Friday, 14 December 2007