Is this the most confusing car brand of all time?

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4 hours ago

The story behind car maker Talbot is far more complicated than you might think
Open gallery Percy Lambert became the first person to do 100mph in this 1913 Talbot
Stunning Talbot-Lago teardrop arrived in 1938
Talbot-Lago T26 racing car won several grand prix
Rear-wheel drive Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was a hot hatch delight
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What is the most confusing car brand of all time? It's an intriguing question – and we reckon the answer might well be Talbot.
The story started all the way back in 1888, when Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury, founded a London taxi firm with the competitive advantage of using newfangled pneumatic tyres.
Eight years later, the Earl entered business with one Adolphe Clément, who had made a fortune from said invention, to sell the Frenchman's tyres, bicycles and cars in London.
In 1902, the pair strengthened their partnership, rebranding the cars Clément-Talbot. But after just a year they bisected their business: the Earl would sell cars badged Talbot in Britain, his partner cars badged Clément-Bayard in France.
Amusingly in hindsight, adverts in Autocar stated that this change was being made 'in order to prevent confusion in the mind of the public'. In 1906, the Earl's London factory began making cars of its own design, separating the two firms yet further.
Talbot soon started succeeding in races and reliability trials, earning it the nickname 'Invincible Talbot'. Its biggest coup came in 1913, when Percy Lambert became the first person to do 100 miles in an hour, lapping Brooklands in a 25hp special – even though 'he could hardly see for several laps' due to thick fog.
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The Great War badly disrupted the London firm and literally gutted the Paris firm, and both struggled to recover afterwards.
So in late 1919 the Earl sold up to Darracq, a British-owned French car maker; and in 1921 Clément sold his factory to local upstart André Citroën.
The new owners of the Earl's old firm kept the Talbot brand for London-made cars and started using Talbot-Darracq for Paris-made cars. In short order, they bought Wolverhampton's Sunbeam and put the lot under the unfortunately named umbrella of STD Motors.
Real excitement came in 1930 as Talbot ventured to Le Mans for the famous 24-hour race and upset the big players.
Bentley scored a one-two with its 6.6-litre monsters, but Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes and MG were all outclassed by Talbot's 2.3-litre 90s – 'really remarkable', said Autocar. It then twice repeated this impressive feat in the following years with its enhanced 105s.
However, all was not well, as the Western world had plunged into a terrible economic depression and Sunbeam had long been unable to replicate Talbot's prosperity, eventually dragging STD under.
Rootes, owner of Britain's Hillman and Humber car brands, came to the rescue of Sunbeam and Talbot, leading Autocar to proclaim: 'Under this energetic new management, there is no doubt that the Talbot name will continue to rank high in automobile circles.'
It looked as though the Talbot-Darracq business would vanish – until an unexpected buyout by its managing director, the 'large and determined' Italian Antonio Lago.
Henceforth two separate firms would use the Talbot brand, but to avoid confusion Lago's cars were usually referred to in Britain as Darracqs or Talbot-Lagos.
The two firms trod diverging paths: Talbot built restyled humble Hillmans while Talbot-Lago went upmarket with its cars, provided chassis for coachbuilt stunners and competed in grands prix.
In 1938, Rootes decided to merge Talbot and Sunbeam, introducing yet another hyphenated name to this already muddled lineage.
Both Talbots enjoyed the 1950s: Talbot-Lago won grands prix and Le Mans with its T26 and crafted some beautiful luxury and sporting cars for the road, while Sunbeam-Talbot attracted envy for its saloons and convertibles – one of which also won the Coupes des Alpes in the hands of Stirling Moss.
However, confusion persisted, leading Rootes to shorten Sunbeam-Talbot to just Sunbeam in 1954 – 'a short life but a merry one', we said. And five years later, Talbot-Lago's prolonged suffocation by postwar austerity and heavy taxation on luxury cars finally killed it, its assets being bought by Simca.
But that was not the end of the story. Simca and Rootes both later became part of Chrysler Europe, and when that rotten business was dumped at PSA's door in 1979, guess which of its defunct brands – Alvis, Bugatti, Delage, Delahaye, Panhard, Simca, Sunbeam and Talbot – was deemed ripest for revival?
'It has the best image of strength with the European public,' president François Perrin-Pelletier explained to Autocar. 'Most of all, however, it is perceived by 80% of the British public as an English make and 80% of the French as a French make.'
It didn't last long. Talbots either overlapped with other PSA models or were duds, so the next-generation models were redirected to Peugeot and the brand was consigned to die again with the Express van in 1994.
Honestly, what a mess.
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