This car, Lot 211, sold for $198,087 (£161,000), including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s London, U.K., auction on November 4, 2023.
In the world of collector cars, “obscure” doesn’t have a particular bearing on collectible, interesting, important or just plain fun. The fact that few people have ever heard the name Amilcar doesn’t consign it to irrelevance; in its time, Amilcar was a major French auto manufacturer and racing-car presence. No French manufacturer has marketed a car in the U.S. in decades, but automotive history really began in France. From the late 1800s through the 1920s, French companies were at the forefront of automobile design, with particular emphasis on racing.
The French were also responsible for the first big paradigm change in auto racing. From the beginning, going faster was seen as a matter of building a bigger engine to get more horsepower, then building a chassis big enough to carry it. Beginning with Peugeot and Bugatti, the French went the other way. They concentrated on making cars smaller and nimbler, with low-displacement engines frequently supercharged to obtain equivalent power-to-weight ratios. Though Mercedes and Bentley tried to maintain the old approach, the writing was on the wall.
From a modern perspective, this had an unintended but hugely important side effect. These smaller cars were easier and more fun to drive. From personal experience I can attest that the adage “You drive a Bentley with your shoulders, a Bugatti with your forearms, and an Alfa Romeo with your wrists” is accurate. Thundering along in a vintage Bentley or S-type Mercedes is a joy, but stay away from twisty roads. For those you want French or Italian cars.
A good run
Amilcar was formed in Paris in 1921, the name an eponymous mashup of its two founders, and got its start building cyclecars. Amilcar was an immediate success with a selection of street and performance-oriented vehicles. There is a wonderful description of Amilcar from a book review by Pete Vack in Veloce Today that catches the spirit: “Ironically, the lightweight Amilcars … the CC, CS, CGSS, had the charm but not the power. The larger sedan Amilcar cars, the J, K and G series of the late twenties had more power but lacked the charm. But the immortal C6 customer and factory six-cylinder DOHC race cars had both power and oozed the charisma of the earlier light cars.”
Amilcar embodied the “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” racing ethos. Concentrating on the 1,100-cc “Voiturette” class, it designed a wonderful DOHC supercharged 6-cylinder engine. It had roller bearings, dry-sump lubrication and Roots supercharging. I’m told it produced about 85 hp at 6,500 rpm, which made it very competitive. Amilcar got the reputation of “the poor man’s Bugatti” and was known for its unique exhaust note, more subtle than Bugatti’s blat but far stronger than the Salmson and other competitors.
The overall designation for these racers was “C6,” but there is variety within this set. After initial success with the factory team racers, Amilcar decided to produce them for sale and private use. To make them more affordable, the roller bearings were replaced with plain white metal ones, though the supercharger and dry sump were retained. It used a 4-speed transmission, bodywork by Charles Duvall of Paris, and an elegant Eldridge cowling. Amilcar built something like 55 of these over the late 1920s, and they were actively raced well into the 1930s. The C6 was particularly successful with English racers of the period, with most being sold in the U.K.
Unfortunately, Amilcar suffered the fate of many small manufacturers with the onset of the Depression, struggling before being absorbed into Hotchkiss and disappearing completely in 1939. The last true Amilcar was built in 1934. Never as famous as Bugatti, most roadgoing Amilcars were lost to the war years, which explains their relative obscurity.
Unique beasts
Pre-war racing cars are a particular subset of the collecting hobby and appeal to a specific, relatively small group of people. The cars range from clumsy-looking, to cute, to flat gorgeous. Also, tiny to huge, user-friendly to challenging, and not very fast to terrifying. None are particularly comfortable, at least by contemporary standards, and as to safety, you are on your own if things go wrong.
The best pre-war racers strike a balance, and to me the Amilcar succeeds at this. The bodywork is rakish, and I think more attractive than most contemporaries. It is fast enough that it can run with equivalent Bugattis and the occasional MG and Austin special at important races. It is rare enough that it will be welcome in races or vintage rallies anywhere in the world. It is also relatively cheap, though this comes with a downside, as it’s not as good an investment.
A client of mine, on paying top dollar for a very important and original Bugatti Type 35C, explained that he was not a wealthy enough man to purchase anything but the absolute best. Over the years, he has been proven correct, as his investment has held up well in a generally softening market. As far as I have been able to determine, it is difficult to sell an Amilcar racer, and their market value has dropped significantly over the past decade or so. This car was offered by Bonhams in 2015 and failed to sell, as have several others over the past years.
That said, if a collector is looking for something to love, display and use, the C6 is handsome, fun, unique and acceptable anywhere. It is also priced somewhere between a fifth and a 10th the price of a racing Bugatti. Only a few have survived the past 90-plus years, so the rarity ensures a continuing — if small — group of enthusiast followers willing to buy when the time comes. It’s probably not going to make you any money, but if you want to go play in that league, it is a fun and affordable way to do it. I would say it was fairly bought. ♦
(Introductory description courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.)
