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Founded in 1903, Clement Talbot Ltd primarily imported the French Clement cars to Britain. Before the 1914 war, Talbots were built and sold under their own name starting with the 1905 Talbot 16hp which was the first all-British model. A highlight for the marque came when Percy Lambert drove a 25hp Talbot 100 miles within an hour at the 1913 Brooklands race track in Surrey.

By 1920 Talbot merged with both Darracq and Sunbeam to become STD Motors. The first post war model was the 1922 970cc 8/18hp. This nor any other Talbot did not sell well until the first Georges Roesch six cylinder car was released in 1927. From that point forward all Roesch cars sold well and the era ended with the 1936 Talbot 110 Speed Tourer.

In 1936 the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq alliance ended. During this collapse Antony Lago took over the Talbot factory in Suresnes. He introduced a range of cars including two entrants for the 1937 Le Mans 24 Hour Race. In the years leading up to the war, Lago made the move to single seater motor sports. By 1939 a purpose-built GP car was completed.

After the war, Carlo Marchetti helped Lago develop his sports prototypes and GP cars. Eventually an overall win at Le Mans would reward the effort but production after 1950 did not reach any large numbers.

The Grand Sport Dubos Coupe

Representing the upper end of T26 development, the Grand Sport chassis was sold to 'exploit the makes formidable reputation on the track' says Chrisites. Highlighting the car was a triple carburetor fuel feed and aluminum head as found on the GP car.

Almost all the T26 Grand Sports received custom coachwork. Our car, chassis #114 featured a body made by carrossier Lois Dubos of Paris on a custom shortened chassis. A similar sister car appeared at the 1948 Paris Auto Salon in white.

Chrisities' sale of #114

During their 2003 sale of exceptional motorcars at the Pebble Beach Equestrian Center, Chrisites' auctioned chassis 114. The estimated price of the car was set at 200,000 - 270,000 U.S. dollars, but the reserve went unmet.