The silent movie from which we showed you two shots is L’Inhumaine, directed by Marcel L’Herbier and released in 1924. Quite a lot of famous names from the art scene of the 1920s contributed to this film (see Wikipedia for an extensive description). It had already been resetored in the 1970s but only recently the different scenes got back their colours (e.g. all the scenes with the racing car are in French racing blue). It was recently broadcasted by the French/German television channel Arte. Parts of this movie can be watched through Youtube.
There were only two participants in this quiz and both gave the right answer. Jean Claude Poisson wrote: “I think this car is a 2 liter 8 cylinder Rolland-Pilain of 1923. It is the second version of this car born in 1922.The first one had the exhaust pipe on the right side. It was designed by Grillot and its sole victory was at the St. Sebastian Grand Prix (Guyot). It was seventh at Monza and did not finish the Automobile Club de France GP at Tours.” Robbie Marenzi also mentioned the Rolland-Pilain 1923 GP racer and the name of the movie.
The engine of this racer had double overhead camshafts and, it is said, four carburettors. A road version, with only one carburettor, was offered for sale in the Rolland-Pilain catalogue as the Grand Sport Type A.22 but it is unlikely that many were sold (at least one survives, in the famous Malartre collection near Lyon, and was on exposition with PreWarCar during Vintage Revival Montlhery 2013). In the excellent book by Blanchet and Rouxel on the history of the make two possible reasons for the LHD are given: 1) Grillot, the engineer behind this car, had already designed the model C 23 which could be delivered in LHD version; 2) Guyot had been a racing driver in the US (Duesenberg) and in that country the racing direction on circuits was anticlockwise and hence racers had LHD. So Jean Claude’s suggestion may very well be to the point: “The LHD is perhaps inspired by American racing cars of the time.” Maybe it is for this LHD configuration that the two Rolland-Pilains finished first and second in San Sebastian where the racing direction was also anticlockwise (besides, there were not many serious rivals…).
Since Robbie is already jury member, the winner is Jean Claude. Congratulations! Please send us your T-shirt size and mail address and your prize will come your way.
(text Fons Alkemade)