Star

GB, 1898 – 1932

Star/ Starling/ Stuart

(1) Star Motor Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1898 – 1902

(2) Star Engineering Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1902 – 1909

(3) Star Cycle Co, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1905 – 1909

(4) Star Engineering Co Ltd, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1909 – 1928

(5) Star Motor Co Ltd, Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1928 – 1932

Edward Lisle Sr’s Star Motor Co, an offshoot of the Star Cycle Co, produced its first Star car in 1898, and offered the Star car for sale in the following year. The Star car was a Benz-based machine, with a single-cylinder, water-cooled 3½hp engine, belt primary drive and chain final drive. It was an improvement in that water circulation on the Star car was assisted by a pump. In 1900 there followed a 2-cylinder Star car with 3 forward speeds, still on Benz lines. 1901 brougth De Dion-engined single-cylinder Star cars, and 1902 an 8hp twin of Panhard type in addition. Other, larger Star cars of Panhard ancestry joined the 8hp, up to a 20hp four Star car. By 1904, although a De Dion-powered single and Panhard-type twin were still there, the bigger machines were of Mercédès pattern, these Star cars came with honeycomb radiators, mechanically-operated inlet valves and pressed-steel frames. All veteran Star cars up to 1914 were extremely well-made, well-furnished, conventional, rather expensive cars lacking in technical originality, showing a line of development appearance in the 1907 range. The best-known Star car of the veteran period was the excellent 15hp Star car of 1909, a shaft-driven 2.8-litre four which had become the 3-litre 15.9hp by 1914. A great variety of other Star cars, basically similar models were turned out, not only by Star but also by the Star Cycle Co. The latter, run by Edward Lisle Jr, had made motor tricycles and bicycles, and produced the Starling car in 1905. It had 2 forward speeds and a De Dion single-cylinder engine, but was otherwise of Panhard type, with armoured wood frame and chain drive. One year later the Star car company supplemented it with the more modern Stuart car, which had 2-cylinders, 3-speeds and shaft drive. This name was dropped in 1908, all models being called Starlings, but these too, disappeared in 1909 when Star cars cheaper line was entrusted to the new Brion Motor Co, a more indepented concern that was still run by Edward Lisle Jr. So popular was the Star car that its makers were among the six largest in the country before 1914.

The 15.9hp Star car was continued after World War 1, together with another sv four Star car of pre-war origin, the 20hp Star car of 3.8-litres. A modern light Star car of fashionable type, the 11.9hp, arrived in 1921. This Star car used a 1.795cc sv engine with a detachable head, made in unit with a 3-speed gearbox which had central change. By 1924, the 11.9 Star car had grown up into the 2-litre 12/25hp Star car. It shared cylinder dimensions with the 18hp Star car, which was a new 3-litre six. The 12/25 Star car could be had as a very fine fast touring car with overhead valves and 54bhp, in which form the Star car was called 12/40hp. Thereafter, the Star car range reverted to its pre-war complexity. By 1927, there were three sv Star car models and two additional and more up-to-date Star cars with overhead valves. The 14/40hp Star car, new in 1926, was a solid 2-litre, ohv machine which in spite of having only 4-cylinders and 3 forward speeds, this Star car was a notably smooth and flexible car, thanks to a 5-bearing crankshaft. The ohv 20/60hp Star car, a 2½-litre six with the same bore and stroke as the 14/40 and a 7-bearing crankshaft, was the most luxurious Star car. A light six, the popular ohv 18/50hp, joined the Star car range in 1928, the year of the Star car company’s acquisition by Guy, and replaced the 14/40 Star car for 1929. By this time, the sv Star cars had gone, leaving the two sixes. As the 18hp Star Comet and the 21hp Star Planet, these Star cars were revised with handsome bodies and very full, luxurious equipment, including one-shot chassis lubrication, thermostatically-controlled radiator shutters and a built-in jacking system. Two other engines, of 14hp (2-litres) and 24hp (3.6-litres) were also obtainable in Star cars for 1932, as alternative Comet and Planet power units. These Star car were the last new Star cars, for they were too expensive to make, and the times favoured the mass-produced economy car. Production of Star cars ended in March 1932, but the unsold stock was sold by McKenzie and Denley of Birmingham, and the Star car was quoted in the Buyer’s Guide lists until 1935.

US, 1903 – 1904

(1) Star Automobile Co, Cleveland, Ohio

(2) H.S. Moore, Cleveland, Ohio

This Star car was driven by a single-cylinder, watercooled engine of 1.9-litres, mounted beneath the front seat, with false bonnet and coil radiator in front. A champion planetary transmission and double chain drive was used on this Star car. Both two- and five-seater Star cars were made, the latter with rear entrance.

US, 1908

Star Automobile Co, Chicago, Ill.

Star runabouts were offered in three models, selling for $500, $600 and $700 respectively. The smallest Star car was an open two-seater, and shaft drive was employed on all Star cars.

US, 1908

Model Automobile Co, Peru, Ind.

The short-lived Star car from Peru was offered in conventional 2- and 4-cylinder forms. The twin was chain-driven, while the big, expensive four Star car ($4.000) had shaft drive.

US, 1922 – 1928

Durant Motor Co of New Jersey, Elizabeth, N.J.; Lansing, Mich; Oakland, Calif.

William Crapo Durant’s Star Four was one of the most serious attempts to take away some of the Model T Ford’s market, for the cheapest practical car. Unlike the Ford, the Star car was an assembled machine.The Star car had a 2.2-litre, 4-cylinder engine by Continental, and was conventional in design in every way except the gearbox, which was separate; a feature common to all the vehicles in Durant’s empire, but very unusual in American mass-produced cars by the early 1920s. The touring Star car cost only $443 in 1923, which helped Star to be the seventh biggest seller in America that year. The Star car was sold outside the United States as the Rugby. In 1926, a 2.8-litre six Star car was introduced. Front wheel brakes appeared in 1927 but a year later the Star car make disappeared in the collapse of the Durant interests. By this time, 250 Star cars a day were being turned out. Only the Four was still called the Star car for the 1928 model year, as the Six was now known as the Durant Model 55.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN, GMN, MJWW, TRN

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com

Darracq , Talbot Suresnes

France, 1896 – 1959

(1) Société A. Darracq, Suresnes, 1896 – 1905

(2) A. Darracq & Co (1905) Ltd, Suresnes, 1905 – 1920

(3) Automobiles Talbot, Suresnes, 1920 – 1959

An immense complexity of nomenclature surrounds the two makes, Darracq and Talbot Suresnes. While the cars themselves were always designed and built in France, the Darracq company was financed in England during its golden period and after (1905-1935), then merged with a French concern which had been formed to make Italian cars, and subsequently acquired American affiliations. Alexandre Darracq founded the Gladiator cycle company in 1891, selling out to British interests five years later. Darracq then turned briefly to the manufacture of electric carriages, exhibiting a Darracq coupé at the 1896 Paris Salon. In 1898, however, he acquired (for £10.000) the manufacturing rights of Léon Bollée’s 4-wheeler voiturette, a belt-driven 5hp machine with a single-cylinder air-cooled horizontal engine, tube ignition and steering-column gear-change. It was not a success, though column change was to persist on some of Darracq’s own designs until 1910.

The idea of a small and inexpensive Darracq runabout persisted, and in 1900 came the first real Darracq: its 785cc front-mounted vertical single-cylinder engine had automatic inlet valves, coil ignition, a cone clutch and shaft drive – Alexandre Darracq, like Louis Renault, never marketed a chain-driven car. The Darracq could be bought in England for £250 in 1901, in which year the Société Darracq took up racing with a 1.9-litre 2-cylinder machine driven by Henry Farman. Though only ‘Darracq singles’ were offered to the public in 1902, racing Darracq cars were formidable voiturettes with 5.9-litre 4-cylinder engines and won the light-car category of the Concours du Ministre alcohol race, besides doing well in the Paris-Vienna. A manufacturing licence for Germany was taken out by Opel that year. Darracq cars were raced until 1906, winning the light-car and voiturette categories of the Circuit des Ardennes. The Darracq company’s grandes voitures were less successful: Darracq was determined to win the 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup and entered not only his Darracq own team of 11.3-litre machines for the French éliminatoire, but also sponsored three Opel-built cars in Germany, with another three Darracq cars specially built from scratch by Weir of Glasgow, to carry the British colours. Only von Opel’s Opel-Darracq actually raced at Homburg and this failed to survive a single lap. Some very light 9.9-litre ohv Darracq cars were prepared for 1905, but it was not until the following season that a twofold success was achieved: Wagner’s victory in the Vanderbilt Cup, and Algernon Lee Guinness’s 117.66mph over the kilometer at Ostend on a special 22.5-litre ohv V8 Darracq sprint car. Darracq cars took 2nd and 3rd places in the 1908 TT but no more were raced until 1921.

Meanwhile the utility cars prospered. Single-, twin- and 4-cylinder Darracq models were marketed in 1903, all but the smallest having mechanically-operated side valves in a T-head, while the simplified 8hp Darracq Populaire sold for only 4.800fr in France. 1904 saw the introduction of steel frames pressed out of a single sheet of metal and also the advent of the rapid 3.1-litre 4-cylinder Darracq Flying 15 for sale at £460. The new type of chassis was universal by 1905, when the Darracq company was reorganized under British registry, and some quite big Darracq car were offered, though these were modestly priced, at the top of the regular range being a 5.9-litre 28hp with dual ignition and a 12ft 4in wheelbase at only £687. It was also possible to buy a 70hp Darracq sporting model based on the 1904 Gordon Bennett cars.

The 1907 1100cc single Darracq sold for £159 and had mechanically-operated valves, but at the other end of the range there were the 4.7-litre ‘20/28’, the 11½-litre ohv ‘Vanderbilt Cup’ type, and a 5.7-litre 4-speed six Darracq selling for £850. This had grown up to 8.1-litres with square cylinder dimensions a year later, though Darracqs still had a progressive gear change, and there was a short vogue for rear-axle-mounted gearboxes on a brace of new L-head monobloc fours with 2.3-litre and 3.1-litre engines. This transmission was dropped in 1909, the last year of ‘Darracq singles’, and the twins disappeared twelve months later. Gate change arrived in 1910 on Darracq cars for sale. In 1911 there were seven Darracq models, the 15hp at £275 having overhead inlet valves. The 1912 p Darracq rogramme, however, saw a catastrophic flirtation with the Henriod rotary-valve engine, installed in the 4.4-litre P12 4-cylinder with a 10ft 5in wheelbase, worm drive and dashboard radiator. A 2.6-litre rotary-valve Darracq model had conventional cooling arrangements, but profits faded away to almost nothing, and in the ensuing upheaval M. Darracq retired. Owen Clegg from Rover took over the management and the 1913 Darracq cars were obviously inspired by his successful Rover Twelve. They came in 2.1-litre and 2.9-litre sizes with L-head Monobloc-cylinder engines and worm drive and very soon the Darracq firm was back on a sound footing. Additional to the 1914 range was a 4-litre ’ Darracq 20/30’ and the 16hp Darracq was sold with electric lighting and starting. This latter Darracq model went back into production in 1919 and was joined shortly afterward by an advanced 4.6-litre sv V8 with coil ignition and spiral bevel final drive, which had acquired 4-wheel brakes by the time it reached the production stage.

In June 1920 the British firms of Sunbeam and Talbot, who had joined forces in 1919, merged with Darracq and thenceforward nomenclature becomes complex. For the first few years after the amalgamation, the term ‘Talbot-Darracq’ was freely used on both sides of the Channel, but strictly the cars were ‘Talbot’ (pronounced à la Francaise) in Europe, and ‘Darracq’ in the British Commonwealth up to 1939. The new combine Talbot and Darracq supported racing, though the very successful Henry-designed twin ohc 4-cylinder differential-less voiturettes evolved in 1922 ran indiscriminately as Talbots and Darracqs. They and their descendants were, however, conceived and designed at Suresnes and victories included the 200-Mile Race at Brooklands (1922 running unblown, 1924 and 1925 in supercharged form), the Coupe des Voiturettes (1922 and 1923), and the Penya Rhin race (1923). 1926 saw a team of advanced blown twin ohc 1½-litre straight-8s which never really proved themselves before Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq’s precarious finances forced a withdrawal from racing in 1927.

In the touring-car field, Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq settled down to fifteen years of competing against themselves. A 3.2-litre sv 15hp Darracq with detachable head appeared in 1921, still with worm drive, and this was followed a year later by a small ohv 970cc Darracq machine with no differential and coil ignition, made also in England as the 8/18 Talbot, and the first of a line of 1½-litre ohv fours, the 10CV, selling at £595. Worm drive was dropped, and fwb had spread to the smaller Darracq cars in 1924 with the 2.1-litre Darracq DS – in sports form this was said to give 57bhp – but though the firm reverted to magneto ignition they retained wood wheels (still found on some Darracq cars as late as 1931) and 3-speed gearboxes. A year later the 1½-litre Darracq had grown up into the handsome ‘Darracq 12/32’ with 4-wheel brakes and Weymann saloon bodywork; this theme was continued until 1928, by which time the car had a 1.7-litre engine and four forward speeds. Late in 1925 came the first of a long line of ohv push-rod sixes on conventional lines, with 3-speed gearboxes, single-plate clutches, magneto ignition and Perrot-type fwb: the 2.5-litre Darracq TLA gave 72bhp and sold for £800. Both an extra forward ratio and the option of a 2.9-litre unti came the following year. 1928 saw a real light six of 2 litres’ capacity with coil ignition, Talbot’s bi-metal pistons and Bendiz brakes. Only 6-cylinder cars were marketed for sale by Darracq in 1929, when 7-bearing crankshafts and centralized chassis lubrication made their appearance, while the inevitable straight-8 was listed for 1930: it featured a 3.8-litre 100mhp engine with a 9-bearing crank and nitralloy liners, and could be had on an 11ft 10in wheelbase. The next major facelift came in 1933, with box-section frames and transverse ifs on the sixes and eights. Only one 6-cylinder Darracq model was catalogued in 1934, the year in which Darracq followed the lead of Roesch at Talbot by adopting the Wilson preselective gearbox which was retained until 1954.

After the collapse of Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Motors in 1935 the Suresness factory came under the control of Major A.F. Lago, who had been well known in London for his L.A.P. ohv conversions in the 1920s. Lago introduced a new line of 6-cylinder ohv cars retaining the X-braced frames and ifs, while synchromesh gearboxes were available on the cheaper variants. The 2.7-litre Darracq 15CV and 3-litre Darracq 17CV were pleasant but not particularly lively tourers, but the 4-litre Darracq 23CV with 7-bearing crank disposed of 165bhp in its Lago Special guise with cross-push-rod valve gear and hemispherical head, and would comfortably exceed 100mph. A 1-2-3- victory in the 1937 French sports-car Grand Prix at Montlhéry in 1937 was followed up by Comotti’s win in the TT. Under the 1938 GP formula the cars were less successful – stripped sports machines could do nothing against Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union, while the low offset 1939 4½-litre single-seaters were not much faster. A 3-litre blown V16 engine never came to anything, any more than did a plan laid in 1937 to revive the Invicta name by building 3-litre and 4-litre Darracqs with Delage-style bodywork in London.

After World War 2, however, the 4½-litre racers (now ‘Talbot’ or ‘Lago-Talbot’, never ‘Darracq’) came into their own. What they lacked in power they made up in modest fuel consumption, and could often go through a race without refueling, an attribute not shared by blown 1½-litre machines. Chiron’s win at Comminges in 1947 was a prelude to a career that spanned four seasons, and was backed by Rosier’s 1950 Le Mans victory on a similar machine with sketchy road equipment. Pierre Levegh would have repeated this in 1952, against Mercedes-Benz, had he not attempted a single-handed drive for the 24 hours. Touring-car production was hampered by crippling taxation and uncertain finances: 433 cars were sold in 1950, but only 80 in 1951. In spite of this M. Lago had a revised 4½-litre 170bhp Lago Record sports car with hydraulic brakes in production in 1946, following it up with a simpler and cheaper corss-pushrod four, the 2.7-litre Baby in 1950. This was said to have 118bhp, had hydraulic brakes and the choice of synchromesh or preselector, and was offered only with rhd; but it was not a particularly good car, and its styling did not enhance it. By 1952 the range had been restyled, but though Lago was extracting 247bhp from his Le Mans engines, he met with no success, and henceforward the road lay downhill. Various engines were tried: in 1955 there was a 5-bearing 2½-litre four on established Talbot lines, with a 4-speed ZF gearbox and handsome GT-style bodywork. In 1956 Maserati 250 engines were fitted in the Le Mans cars and in 1957, when two cars were still being turned out every week, a final attempt was made to earn dollars with the Lago America, the 1955 chassis with a 2.6-litre BMW V8 power unit. By 1959 Simca were in control at Suresnes, and the Talbot coupé had yet another engine – the old sv V8 motor inherited from Ford of France. Though an odd-looking coupé with Simca Aronde engine was shown on the Talbot stand at the 1960 Paris Salon, no more cars have been made. It is ironic to note that the three partners in the Sunbeam-Talbot- Darracq venture were re-united once more as a result of the Rootes-Chrysler deal in 1965, Chrysler already having a substantial stake in Simca.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com