Somewhat hidden at Retromobile: Tracta 1928

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The most innovative car at Rétromobile.
Aside the Baillon cars, Rétromobile this year was quite strongly dominated by the beautiful Italians (and Spaniards) from the 1940s up to the 1970s. The black Alfa Romeo’s from the Lopresto collection were spectacular but it seemed as if all this postwar brilliance had a negative influence on the number of people that visited the area around the PreWarCar stand, the area where the veterans (not very many) and vintage cars were displayed.
(editor: you must have chosen a quiet hour to visit our stand Fons; I still have the pictures on my retina of the massive crowds that passed by...) 

In between the club stands were two stands devoted to the heritage of the French genius Jean Albert Grégoire. One of these was the stand of the Avignon Motor Festival where they had managed to display two examples of the first attempt by M. Grégoire to enter the French car market: the Tracta. I have seen pictures of the very first Tracta, the model A, several times in the past but only if you stand in front of this car, and you compare it to your own middle-of-the-road 1925 Charron or to almost any other car of the mid 1920s, you realize how very different and revolutionary the Tracta was. It is low, has a very long bonnet and – above all – it clearly shows the very first reliable front-wheel-drive system which was applied to a French ‘production car’.

Grégoire was trained as an engineer but became a 'garagiste' in Versailles in the early 1920s and like so many of them he got the idea to build his own car. His associate Pierre Fenaille convinced him the car should have 'traction avant'. Grégoire then invented the ‘homokinetic’ joint (actually proposed for the first time in 1690!), a solution that was used some years later by Citroën and others. The Tractas showed their reliability and performance several times at Le Mans; the car shown at Rétromobile took part in 1928 and 1929. Those interested in Grégoire’s own account of the Tracta story should at least try to find a copy of ‘Best wheel forward’, a translation of the book he published in 1953. This very model A comes with a remarkable story. It was bought in 1958 by a young French car lover who had noticed the car abandoned on a boulevard along the Seine in Boulogne-Billancourt. Since then the car, which is said to be the third Tracta ever built, has been kept in original condition.

(Text and pictures by Fons van Alkemade)

 

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