Lot Ended
Description
Exceedingly rare French Light Car; Carrosserie Mouche Torpedo body;
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 are 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 as an example which is most unusual, and it
takes a 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 a 1.7-litre SCAP overhead-cam engine with an aluminium head 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 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 under
the paint 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 really annoying to play with when stuck in traffic - zut
alors!
While the paintwork looks
well-patinated and plausibly original, a couple of undated photos of the car
when it was still on French plates 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.
As you can see in the video, it
has been running and driving as we have moved it around on site. A curiosity of
the gearbox is that reverse is selected by going into first and then pushing
forward once more to go into reverse - something that took us a moment or
two to work out.
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