Delahaye 165 Cabriolet (Figoni et Falaschi), 1939
The first industrial products weren't particularly elegant or graceful, but the distinctive design charm of the small CitroΓ«n 5CV was universally noted. Perhaps it was this French ethos that was most fully reflected in the style of these early automobiles, which attracted the most radical designers and stylists to France. The most powerful influx of originals came from neighboring Italy, and the peak of this peculiar intellectual emigration occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, when Ettore Bugatti's son, Jean, a brilliant stylist and designer, began working for his company after moving from Milan. In Paris, Piacenza native Giuseppe Figoni and Tuscan Ovidio Falaschi met, beginning to produce perhaps the most unusual bodies for such exotic firms as Delahaye, Delage, and Talbot.
