Amilcar was founded in 1921 by Joseph Lamy and Emile Akar, the name Amilcar being an imperfect anagram of the partners’ names. Outgrowing its Parisian city-centre premises as soon as 1924, Amilcar relocated to Saint-Denis on the northern edge of the city. The company built a considerable reputation during the 1920s as a manufacturer of some of the world’s fastest cyclecars, including the 1922 4-cylinder, 903cc Amilcar CC and, from 1924, the sporting 1004cc CS and the famous CGS “Grand Sport”. Amilcar entered racing in the mid-1920s with a batch of supercharged double overhead camshaft 1100 cc six-cylinder single-seater cars with roller-bearing crankshafts. The company sold a de-tuned, two-seater, production version which they called the C6.
But, at the end of the 1920s, Amilcar changed its policy and concentrated on making touring models.
Reorganised as Société Anonyme Française de l’Automobile, the firm introduced a short-lived straight-eight in 1929, and when that failed returned to making smaller models, the most successful of these being the Type C. For 1935 Amilcar introduced a larger car, the Pégase. The car’s introduction coincided with the final chapter of Amilcar’s struggle for survival. The Saint Denis plant was closed down in August 1934 and Amilcar relocated to much smaller premises in Boulogne-Billancourt. The Pégase was first shown with Amilcar’s own overhead-cam 2120cc 12CV four-cylinder, designed by its engineer Grillot. But financial constraints intervened, and it was decided that it would be more cost effective to fit the similarly sized four-cylinder 2150cc (12CV) engine produced by Delahaye. It is doubtful whether any of the Grillot-engined, 12CV Pégases were ever offered for sale.
But the in-house engineering team had not lost its memory of the sporting and racing history of the company. In 1935 a larger “compétition” engine, designed by Grillot and based on his earlier design, was added as an option. Curiously, the original file name of the example in our Snapshot suggests that it has this larger 2490cc engine.
The Pégase was an elegant car, offering a range of bodies that featured the stylish aerodynamic look that became fashionable in the middle 1930s. Amilcar had no in-house facilities for producing bodies, so these would have been supplied by outside contractors, which allowed for considerable flexibility. No fewer than eleven body types were offered at the 1935 Paris Salon, but a year later these were reduced to four.
Hotchkiss took over what was left of Amilcar in 1937 and ended production of the Pégase, by then the company’s only model. Only some 200 had been made. At the 1937 Paris Salon Hotchkiss did launch the Amilcar Compound, a front-wheel-drive car with unitary body/chassis designed by Jean-Albert Grégoire, but that is a story for another time.
Image displayed with the kind permission of the Haynes Motor Museum.
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