It’s a Vutotal body by Labourdette, with a V12 Delage engine fitted to a Delahaye 135 chassis, supposedly built for the French Formule Sport in 1936, but it wasn’t ready until 1937. Not mentioned is that it was entered for the French GP (DNS) and Le Mans in 1937, where it was crashed in practice and withdrawn. After repairs it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in the same form, but over the winter of 1937-38 the body was removed and it was rebuilt as a two-seat open sports/racer to comply with the new International Formula. Its first race was in the 1938 International Trophy at Brooklands, where it caught fire immediately after the start, the subsequent crash seriously injuring the driver, Joseph Paul. Two spectators were killed, one of them Tom Murray Jameson, the designer of the marvellous Austin racers who had recently returned to ERA to oversee a road car project. Several other racing personalities among the spectators were injured.

The car was also entered for the 1938 French GP, but neither it nor Paul had recovered from their Brooklands mishap and it was set aside until after the war when it was rebodied again and fitted with a diesel engine for record-breaking.

via HAMB