Lot Ended
Description
Exceedingly rare French Light Car; Carrosserie Mouche Torpedo body;
all-aluminium SCAP 1.7 OHC engine; four-wheel brakes; RHD; recent new tyres and
tune-up; find another one!
You can always expect the
unexpected at Brightwells and we can bet that there at least three cars in this
catalogue that will be completely new to most of you.
Okay, it’s
possible that some of you may have heard of Grant (Lot 19) and perhaps a tiny
handful may be aware of Donnet-Zedel (Lot 36) but even the internet draws a
blank with this one – Google Sidea and it tells you that no such marque exists.
That is clearly not the case because the proof stands before you in all its
faded glory.
Fortunately, our old friend
Georgano is rather better informed than any search engine and his Complete
Encyclopedia of Motorcars tells us that SIDEA stands for Societe Industrielle des
Establishments Automobiles, a firm founded in the Ardennes department of
northern France in 1912.
Even Georgano begins to struggle after that
though, not even showing a photo, and it take a fair bit of detective work to
establish that SIDEA was taken over by Societe Jouffret in c.1922, a voiturette
manufacturer owned by H Demeester, who renamed the brand Sidea-Jouffret
and moved production to Paris.
The first Jouffret was
produced in 1920 with an 11hp Ballot engine but by 1922 the Sidea-Jouffret came
with an all-aluminium 1.7-litre SCAP overhead-cam engine mated to a four-speed
gearbox.
SCAP had honed their engineering
skills in World War One, making Hispano-Suiza V8 aero engines under licence
which were installed in fighter planes like the French SPAD and the British SE5a
– a nimble single-seat fighter favoured by aces like Albert Ball and James
McCudden, often described as ‘the Spitfire of WW1’.
After the war, SCAP capitalised on this experience by supplying a
range of high-quality proprietary engines to the multitude of small French
manufacturers that existed at the time. These engines were fitted to
Sidea-Jouffret cars until the firm ceased trading in 1924, unable to compete
with the might of Citroen and Renault.
This 1922 Sidea-Jouffret, chassis number 557, is a Type 4C5 according
to the build plaque on the dash, and has the SCAP 1.7 OHC engine mated to
four-speed transmission with Perrot brakes to all four wheels.
An online discussion by members of the
AutoPuzzles rare cars forum states that the four-seater aluminium Torpedo body
is by Carrosserie Mouche who were active in the early 1900s and bodied cars by
Chenard-Walcker, Rochet-Schneider and Sequeville-Hoyau, among others. You can view that discussion if you copy
and paste this link into your browser:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2956/
Little is known of the history of this 4C5 but some
photos and a copy of a French Certificat d’Immatriculation show that by 2019 it
was owned by a Christophe Vignaud of Talence, a southern suburb of Bordeaux, and
had the registration number FF 635 HA (which you can still just make out on the
front right wing).
Other documents show that it
was acquired by a Mr O Way of West Sussex in February 2020 and was first UK
registered in January 2023 with the number BF 9302.
In April 2021 it was acquired by a gentleman in Kent who spent a fair
bit of money on the car including fitting a pair of new Excelsior tyres and
Michelin inner tubes supplied by Longstone Tyres at a cost of £1,332. Another
£1,965 was spent on work to the
propshaft, getting the car running properly and some repairs to the hood frame
and a replacement hood bag (although there is currently no actual
hood).
Someone has clearly renewed the front and
rear wings at some point in the not-too-distant past, and the seats have also
been partially re-covered in black vinyl. It retains what look like the
original Phares Auteroche headlamps and a modern brake light has been added at
the back. In true Gallic style it has a large under-bonnet klaxon to
frighten cyclists and give you something pointless and annoying to
do when stuck in traffic.
While the
paintwork looks well-patinated and plausibly original, a couple of undated
photos of the car when it was still in France show that it was actually much
smarter not that long ago so perhaps it has since been prepped for a repaint
which never happened or the paint was deliberately distressed for that ‘oily
rag’ look – who knows?
There is also an
intriguing photo of two dashing chaps in the car with French film star looks so
maybe it has been used for film work – again, who knows?
Our
vendor acquired the car via Brightwells in September 2023 to join his
interesting collection of ‘oily rag’ vintage cars. In good running and driving
order when we sold it in 2023, our vendor’s health issues have precluded him
from using the car and it has been tucked away in a nice dry barn for the last
couple of years, hence the reason sale.
An ideal
machine for the VSCC Light Car Section, with room for all the family, this
exceedingly rare and interesting RHD French Light Car is on offer for the price
of a humdrum Austin Seven or Morris Eight. You could wait a very long time to
find another Sidea-Jouffret for sale so this really is an opportunity not to be
missed...
Consigned
by James Dennison – 07970 309907 – james.dennison@brightwells.com